The Kill
by Imarra Pendaran
Summary: While on a mission, Rogue is forced to kill with her draining mutation. Is her resulting behavior just a case of taking on his personality, or is it something deeper? How will Pyro's return to the mansion effect her? Rated M for strong language.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Don't own the rights to it. I was not a fan of the third movie, so when you're reading this just pretend the series stopped at the second movie, because I like to forget the third movie was ever even made. Also wanted to say I'm aware of the canon origins for Rogue's strength and flight capabilities. I handle it differently in this story.

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Chapter 1

Their was screaming everywhere, the pitiful moans of human suffering that battered her eardrums and threatened to drive her as mad as all of the patients running helter-skelter through the halls of Bellevue Mental Institution. Blood splattered the walls. The scent of human excrement, of human fear, and even the scent of madness, a coagulation of the disturbing scents of sickness and depravity, coated her nostrils in a thick sludge threatening to make it impossible for her to breathe. Dragging in erratic breaths, Rogue found herself thrown against the wall hard enough to momentarily knock the breath from her body, but she rebounded, her gloved hands locking around the man's arms who was putting up such a struggle.

This was supposed to be an easy mission. Simply detain the escaped patients without harming them by using zip ties and escort them back to the nursing station on each floor of the hospital so they could be taken back to their room. Hell, Rogue wasn't even supposed to be up here on the fifth floor where the criminally insane were housed. It was supposed to be Logan's domain since he could take the most punishment, but she'd left Colossus in charge of the third floor where she was supposed to be acting as a mini team leader to follow the man she was struggling with when he had literally busted through the floor. Flying through the holes he had left hadn't been her idea of fun, but if he was strong enough to burst through floors, then he was a mutant whose mutation provided him with increased strength.

Definitely a mutant, because only a mutant whose strength was greater than her own considerable strength could rip his arms out of her hands. Getting used to her own strength mutation had been a difficult thing to master. Hell, she'd had to relearn how to grasp things like eggs or even people to keep from breaking them, but Logan had taught her well, so when she dove to the side and managed to wrestle the man to the ground, she was able to grasp his wrists without snapping the bones like dry twigs.

"Keep your face planted on that floor!" she cried while reaching for a zip tie again, but the man bucked her off so hard she flew into the wall again.

"Rogue, report!" came Scott's voice through the com unit attached to the collar of her black, leather X suit.

She slapped her hand over the unit to activate it and said, "Not now, Cyclops, I'm kinda busy."

Picking herself up off the floor again, she was momentarily distracted by a man, dragging a human arm behind him that he'd presumably ripped from a body, who came rushing toward her. Great! As if Fucker A hadn't been fun enough to deal with, now she had some psychotic caveman lumbering toward her looking like he was going to attempt to beat her death with the arm. She should have left well enough alone and not taken a tip-toe through the tulips of Logan's realm.

"Rogue, where the fuck are you?" Logan demanded through the com unit. "Shadowcat said you abandoned your post, so if you don't tell me where the Hell you are right this second, I'm puttin' you over my knee when we get on the jet."

Logan, who was more of a father to her than her biological father had ever been, wasn't one person she wanted mad at her, was the one person she never wanted to disappoint, but she was robbed of the opportunity to tell him where she was when Fucker A snarled and came rushing toward her with his shoulder lowered like a battering ram. Joy of all joys! Rogue braced herself for the impact, but at the last second, she flew up over the man to allow his momentum to carry him into the wall. With him momentarily stunned, she turned her attention to Caveman an instant before the arm he was holding clobbered her on the side of the head, splattering her face with the previous-owner-of-said-arm's blood.

This was getting just a little ridiculous! She could drain people through touch, could fly, and could use a telephone pole as a baseball bat, but Fucker A and Caveman were giving her a run for her money? Uh uh. Rogue didn't play like that. Either she took these piss-ants down now or she was never showing her face at the mansion again. She was the resident bad-ass, for Christ's sake! Everyone else looked up to her to be able to handle herself in any situation, so she was not letting a pair of lunatics in the midst of a security breech at a mental institution get the best of her.

Shooting into the air, she twisted in midair and came down behind Caveman with a zip tie clenched between her teeth. A shove sent him stumbling forward hard enough he ended up flat on his stomach. She was on him a second later and jerking his hands behind his back. The zip tie was in place a moment later. The tuft of white hair having escaped from her pony tail was blown forcefully out of her face with a breath of frustration while Caveman started flopping around on the floor like a fish out of water.

Fucker A's growl brought her attention focused back on him, so she drawled, "What is it with you guys thinkin' you can manhandle a lady? I think it's about time someone taught you some manners." Her Mississippian accent was more pronounced when she wasn't actively trying to diminish it.

"I'm going to eat your intestines, my pretty," he said while facing her, his arms akimbo, the light of madness in his eyes. She was left with no doubt he meant to do just that, a realization that sent another shudder working through her body.

"Not my idea of a fun first date, Honey, but we can work with it. How about raw sausage instead of intestines?"

"That's it, Rogue, you are officially fucking grounded when I find you! You're grounded until you're fucking fifty!"

She hated the almost desperate note in Logan's voice, despised knowing she had put it there especially by breaking a direct order from Scott and Logan. For now, Fucker A was the only one she could take her frustrations out on, so she said, "See what you did? You got my dad mad at me and earned me a punishment."

Logan's communication was also the one thing that distracted her for the three seconds it took Fucker A to charge her, took her attention away from the patient just long enough for him to flatten her against the wall. Before she could propel him away from her, his arms were locking around her waist and applying such pressure she knew she wouldn't be able to break his hold without hurting him with as much certainty as she knew her dad was going to lock her away in an adamantium cell for a week. With one of her arms trapped by his arms locked around her, she couldn't simply snap his neck and inform the doctors there had been no way to detain him. There was only one option open to her, and it shot a sliver of dread and fear like a lance through her gut.

A slight cry was torn from her when it felt as though her ribs were going to give way under the pressure. Great! Instead of spending Valentines Day locked away in her room brooding about how evolution had decided to shit on her head by making it impossible for her to ever have a relationship, she was going to be laid up in the infirmary with broken ribs. No, she took that back. Logan would touch her face and force her to accept his healing mutation to heal the ribs. She would end up suffering either way, but if she didn't do something soon, Fucker A might actually snap her in half.

Her forehead crashed into his skull when she opted to try a head-butt before falling back on the absolute last resort. Stars danced behind her eyes. Pounding waves of pain rocked her head when it felt like her brain was sloshing around inside her cranial cavity. The last resort became necessary when she felt one of her ribs give way, drawing a sharp yelp from her. This would teach her to listen to her fucking dad next time and keep her ass where she'd been told to keep it!

Rogue used her teeth to yank the glove off her one free hand. Whimpering in absolute dread, she laid her naked skin against Fucker A's cheek. Five…Four…Three…Two…One… A spark preceded the activation of her mutation, a slight electric charge her only warning before it felt as though the man was being sucked into her via the contact of their bare skin. She cried. She screamed. She dared not let go, not yet. He wasn't dropping to the ground yet. His arms were still locked tightly around her waist. No pain she had ever encountered hurt as greatly as having his energy, his mutation, his very mind absorbed into her body. There were simply no words to describe it, but then she lost all desire to describe it when images began flashing through her mind, images from Fucker A's mind, the metallic taste of blood on his tongue, flashes of red, of the warmth of human blood coating her throat, of the complete and abject need to release the violence burning inside her.

She screamed again. Letting go wasn't possible. For whatever reason, she was physically incapable of removing her hand, not even when she felt his hold on her go slack. She couldn't even let go of him when they both dropped to the floor, because it was like she was frozen there in that one moment of time where all she could do was lay there, whimper, and try to ride out the mad images swirling in her mind. Blood. Rogue needed to taste blood. Goose bumps raced across her skin, but just as she was certain she was going to rip Fucker A's throat out, the images switched to a feeling of being watched over, a feeling of protection so strong it overwhelmed the same sense of protection she received from Logan. He was there in her mind, a comforting presence reassuring her that she would never be alone, that she would never have to suffering another Valentine's Day alone.

All she was capable of doing was laying on the cold floor twitching when the last of Fucker A's--No, his name was Flesh--life and memories drained into her. She vaguely thought she heard someone shouting her name from a great distance, but there was no way to be certain when the presence inside her was so strong. No one was calling to her. No one of importance was coming for her, for the only protection she could find was the growing comfort of someone called Brogan in her mind.

***

Logan Howlett had experienced death before. He'd experienced blood. He'd experienced the madness of battle, the gut-wrenching sight of seeing comrades fall to the enemy, had seen wounds that would have made any of the other X-Men sick, but nothing, absolutely nothing, in his vast experience frightened him the way he was frightened when he rounded a corner of the fifth floor to see Rogue laying like a crumpled porcelain doll that had been discarded by a careless owner entangled with an escaped patient. Her name was like the roar of a lion when it left his lungs, and he was instantly tearing down the hall to get to her side as quickly as possible. No matter how hard he'd fought it, the kid had wormed her way into his heart with her mixture of vulnerability and sass. She understood him just as he understood her. The very idea of losing his kid was enough to make him want to piss himself.

He went down on his knees beside her and instantly knew what had happened when he caught sight of her naked palm. How the battle had played out was obvious. The psychotic fucker had forced her into a corner, had forced her to take off a glove and use her draining mutation, and he knew it wasn't a mutation she would use lightly. His first action was to yank off his gloves and cup her cheeks to give her his healing mutation. He'd let her draining every fucking drop of his energy if it meant she would be all right.

"Ah, Kid, what have you done to yourself?" he muttered, but that was all he got out before he felt an electric jolt an instant before the draining started. He bore it stoically even when the feeling of having every vein, cell, and nerve in his body being sucked through his hands made him want to whimper.

When no immediate reaction or response was forthcoming from her, a jolt of fear nearly doubled him over. Anyone. He could deal with losing anyone but her. Hell, he'd offer Jeanie up on a chopping block before accepting Rogue's death, because no one in the world could ever be as important to him as Rogue was. Logan maintained the grip on her cheeks well beyond the point of comfort.

"Come on, Kid. You gotta wake up. I don't care what you saw. We can deal with it together as long as you wake up."

He was nearing the point of losing consciousness when Rogue finally gasped and came awake fighting his grip on her cheeks, a grip he was loathe to relinquish until he knew for certain she would be all right.

"Let go!" she cried. Her hands hovered near his wrists like she wanted to pry him off but wouldn't dare touch him with her ungloved hand.

A hiss escaped him when he finally pried his hands off her. The only option open to him was to collapse on the floor while he fought to regain his breath and strength. Normally healing her scrapes and bruises while training in the Danger Room could be achieved with little effect to him, but touching her for a full minute left him feeling like his bones were made of Jello rather than plated in adamantium.

"You know I hate when you do that," she muttered while mustering herself enough to sit up and pull on her glove. "You okay?"

"I'm the one who should be askin' you that, Kid. What the Hell are you doin' up here when One-Eye specifically told you to remain on the third floor? I oughta do what I threatened and put you over my fuckin' knee." Logan instantly regretted his harsh tone when he saw her flinch and draw inward.

"I'm sorry," she said in that small voice of hers he so hated. It was the voice she used when she seemed terrified he would get so pissed at her he would leave like her parents had left.

"S'okay, Kid, you don't have to apologize. Let's just get you outta here and down to the jet. Doc'll have you fixed up in no time, but we're havin' a sharing and caring session when we get back to the mansion about this." His hand swept to indicate the obviously dead psycho. He wasn't stupid. He knew Rogue held onto the memories she absorbed from others.

"About what? I'm fine, and I don't need to see Doctor Leigha, not after you gave me so much of your healing mutation."

The kid, though she was hardly a kid anymore at twenty-one years old, was on her feet before he could gain his own, but as soon as he was up, he scooped her into his arms and headed for the stairwell on determined steps. He was going to have some strong words for Charlie when they got back for sending his kid on a mission to a nuthouse! This was no place for Rogue or any of the younger X-Men as far as he was concerned. They shouldn't have to be exposed to the sights and scents of a madhouse gone wild, but Charlie always had a reason for doing the things he did.

Thankfully, Rogue didn't try to fight him or insist she walk on her own, seemed content to tuck her head under his chin and hide there. That said something about just how much she had been effected by touching that psychotic freak. Rogue was normally supremely independent, rarely got into one of her vulnerable moods unless she was dwelling on her skin mutation. That the freak had managed to reduce her to hiding her face from the world pissed him off like few other things could piss him, and he was generally pissed off by a lot of different things. A low growl emanated from him when he fought the urge to march right back to the fucker and turn his head into Play-Dough.

By the time he made it to the entrance foyer of the facility, he was ready to tear off heads, for his kid had started trembling as though she were fighting an internal battle against Fuck-face's memories. He shot One-Eye a look that clearly should have told the other man to back the fuck off and not even start. Not even Jeanie's concerned glance was greeted with anything less than a grunt as he swept past to get Rogue tucked away inside the Blackbird. Logan no longer held out any hope Jeanie would be his and had finally realized the love he felt for her stemmed from her treating him as an individual rather than a weapon, but she was still his best friend and could get him to open up more than anyone but Rogue.

"Is she okay, Logan?" Jeanie asked in a soft voice.

"Don't know," was all she got out of him.

His eyes adjusted quickly to the darker interior of the jet when he stepped aboard and carefully stretched her out on one of the benches behind the row of chairs, but he wasn't willing to leave her side when their new mutant doctor, Leigha Andrews, came rushing forward to begin a physical work up. Father and daughter's hands were tightly clasped together and would remain that way until someone could reassure him Rogue wasn't going to do something rash like give in to the psychotic memories she'd absorbed and throw herself off a building. He'd fucking glue their damned hands together if necessary.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Don't own the rights to X-Men. Reviews and constructive criticism are always appreciated.

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Chapter 2

Shadowcat, better known at the mansion as Kitty, leaned into the hands Bobby was using to put her hair in a series of braids to keep himself occupied while Professor Summers droned on endlessly in such a monotone voice she found her head drooping forward while giving a detailed mission report to Professor X. Bobby's hands on her new braids kept her head from falling all the way forward. It was followed by a gentle tug to bring her awake again. Could she help it she hadn't had her allotted sugar dose yet today? Could she help it Scott didn't know how to use anything…but…the…same…damn…tone…for…the…past…thirty…minutes?

Technically the professors weren't their professors anymore, not since they'd graduated three years ago, but several of their graduating class had chosen to remain at the mansion under a new program Professor X had initiated with most of the ivy league universities. Mutants could enroll in and attend online courses to get their degrees from one of the universities without exposing themselves to the general population. Things might have gotten better for mutants since Emily Smithson had become president, but nothing was going to change over night.

Shaking her head in an attempt to stir up her brain when Bobby--they'd been officially dating for the past year after Rogue and him had gone through a mutual breakup--finished with her braids, she turned a concerned glance to Rogue. There'd been more than a little tension between them when Kitty had started openly dating Bobby. Hell, they were supposed to be best friends. Best friends didn't date the ex-boyfriend, but Rogue, who had a greater capacity for understanding and forgiveness than anyone she had ever met, had forgiven her. They were back to being best friends, and best friends were supremely concerned when Rogues weren't acting like themselves. Damnit, she knew she should have chained herself to Rogue's ankle during the mission! If she'd been there, Kitty might have been able to stop Rogue from touching the psycho-freak's face.

Rogue looked…fairly okay at the moment. She was dressed in a rather Victorian-looking set of black, velvet overalls and a plum top, but Rogue could get away with wearing off-the-wall outfits while managing to make them look like they belonged. What concerned Kitty, however, was the distant look Rogue was locating on the general area of the window and the sweat beading her brow. Logan's and Piotr's metabolisms worked overtime, so Professor X always turned the air on in his room so the poor guys wouldn't sweat to death. Rogue shouldn't be sweating. Of course, her best friend also shouldn't be staring at a bird with a slight bearing of her teeth like she was contemplating how the poor bird would taste.

"Did you spend last night with her?" Bobby asked in a whisper so as not to interrupt the professors.

"I tried, but she said she was okay and insisted I go work on my project for photography class," Kitty returned. "She always likes to deal with things on her own, so I didn't push it."

"Well, hey, Logan's not going to let her keep this silence up for long, so she's going to be okay. I wish John was here though. He was always good at badgering Rogue out of her silent treatment."

"John's not here, is he," Kitty muttered in a sullen tone. She didn't like John anymore, not after he'd taken off with Magnojerk, not after he'd gone almost five years without so much as calling them to say "I'm not dead in a ditch somewhere!" What irked her more than anything was that John had just dumped Bobby. They were supposed to be best friends! Best friends didn't dump each other without a damn good reason.

Her concern for Rogue was interrupted when Scott started in on bragging about how well the younger X-Men had worked together. Well duh. They'd grown up together and could read each other so well they generally knew what the other was going to do before the other knew it. Obviously they were going to work well together, but as far as she was concerned, yesterday's mission should never have taken place. All she wanted to do was forget everything or borrow Dr. Who's time machine, pop back to yesterday, and stop them from ever having gone on that stupid mission. Kitty had seen and experienced things she had never wanted to experience, like the old lady who'd approached her convinced Kitty was really Amy, her granddaughter. The old lady had begged Kitty to take her home, had even burst into tears, and Kitty had felt gutted by the experience. Grandmas weren't supposed to be locked up in nut houses! They were supposed to be at home baking cookies and spoiling their grandkids. So yeah, totally blacking out all of yesterday sounded like a pretty good idea.

"I think he gets the point, Scott," Rogue suddenly interjected without glancing away from the window. "We went, we saw, we kicked ass, mission over. Is it really necessary to bore us all half to death. No wonder I almost fell asleep in math class so often."

Kitty's eyes suddenly looked like small pie-plates. What the fuck and requiem of what the fuck, dude?! Rogue had never…ever spoken so disrespectfully to any of the professors. Dude, she was training to be a team leader, so she'd never interrupted a mission report before! A slight tremor of fear worked down Kitty's spine and made her get as close to Bobby as she possibly could. What the Hell was wrong with Rogue, and how did they fix her?!

"Is there something you'd like to add to the report, Rogue?" Scott asked in one of his milder tones.

"What's to add? I believe you covered it all in that half-hour-fucking-long-snooze-fest. Can we just all get out of here now before you decide to give a dissertation on what you had for breakfast?"

"Kid," Logan began when he paced away from the window to stand behind Rogue, "I think maybe me and you better go outside for a while and cool off."

"I don't need to go anywhere but back to my room." That said, Rogue shoved to her feet and was preparing to leave when Logan caught her upper arm to stop her.

By that point, Kitty was really and truly freaking out. That was not Rogue, dude! Rogue took all this leadership stuff seriously, and she never would have used that tone with Logan. They were like Dad and Daughter, a Logrogue rather than Logan and Rogue. Kitty grabbed hold of one of Bobby's hands and offered up a slight of whimper of uncertainty. If something was wrong with Rogue, she just didn't know what she would do with herself. They had to fix her! Yeah, that was it. Now that Professor X knew something was wrong, he'd fix Rogue and they would all go out for pizza at the arcade later.

"That's enough mission reporting for now," Professor X said from behind his desk. "Everyone is dismissed, but Rogue, I'd like you to stay behind for a few minutes. I need to talk to you."

Kitty blew out a sigh of relief that Professor X was indeed going to get involved and fix her best friend. Shooting another furtive glance in Rogue's direction, Kitty was suddenly overwhelmed by an impending sense of fucked-up-ness when she noted Rogue staring out the window again at that bird like she was going to punch her hand through the window and break its little neck. She couldn't get out of the room fast enough to give the professor an opportunity to fix Rogue.

Leaving the room, however, didn't bring an end to her fear, and she said to Bobby, "Dude, just dude."

"I know, but Professor X will know what to do. It's not that time of the month for her, is it?"

"You're accusing her of a major case of PMS? That's so not funny right now, Bobby. Rogue gets emo and weepy when she's on PMS. She doesn't talk back to the professors and stare at birds like she wants to go majorly organic!"

"Yeah, it was a stupid suggestion, but I'm trying to find any excuse but the one we're all afraid of. She killed that dude by touching him. God knows what that could do to her brain."

"Let's just… I don't know. I don't know what we can do to help her. Rogue's always been the resident bad-ass, so she's never really let anyone help her before."

"Do you think John would even care about what's going on here? He was always attached to Rogue, so do you think he would want to know that she's not well?"

"Quit talking about her like that."

"Like what?" Bobby asked.

"Like she's sick and needs to be thrown into one of those padded cells at Bellevue. I don't know if John would want to know about this or if he would come if he did know." Kitty took a moment to mentally remark on the sadness of it that even after almost five years, Bobby still talked about John. They'd been as close as brothers at one point. She wanted to strangle John anew.

"That's not what I meant. She's just going through a hard time right now."

"Well, if you're so worried about whether or not John would want to know, then why don't you call Parker and beg him to give you his number?"

"Yeah, maybe, but I doubt he'll tear himself out of Magneto's bunghole to get here. Still, it couldn't hurt to let him know, right? After all, if something's wrong, Rogue's going to need all the support she can get."

Her eyes rolled in the patented Kitty-can't-believe-this expression. "Dude, stop looking for a reason to call him and just call him. You don't need my permission to track his ass down."

A suffocating fear rose up to choke Kitty. Whenever she'd been afraid in the past, she had always been able go to Rogue to talk about it, and Rogue would make it better, would reassure her the world wasn't about to get a major case of diarrhea on their heads. Who was she going to go to when Rogue was the one making her afraid? Kitty could sum the entire situation up into two words: This sucked.

***

Rogue ignored Charles even after the room cleared out, even after Logan squeezed her shoulder, told her to let Charlie help her, and left. Her steady, unblinking glance returned to that damned bird sitting on the windowsill. The unbidden desire to grab hold of the bird and tear its little throat out with her teeth was so strong she gripped the edges of her seat to keep from flying off it. As far as she was concerned, there was no point in talking privately to Charles, because he couldn't help her. No one could help her but Brogan. He'd comforted her last night, had slipped into bed beside her and held her through the long night, whispering soothing words, telling her he'd take care of her. She knew he wouldn't lie to her.

"Rogue, can you look at me?" Charles asked from his wheelchair still parked behind his desk.

Her chocolate glance flicked in his direction for the briefest of moments before returning to look out the window, but the bird was gone now. Relief slumped her shoulders, because without it sitting there, the urge to do violence dissipated.

"How are you?" he asked gently.

"Fine," she returned with little desire to control her Southern drawl that elongated the "i" to make the word sound more like "fawn."

"You can talk to me, Rogue, and nothing you say will leave this office, not even to Logan. We're all very worried about you."

"I just said I was fine!" she snapped. "I don't need you people breathin' down my neck and lookin' at me like you expect me to snap at any moment and require a padded adamantium cell, so just back off, would ya?"

"I'm sorry, but I can't do that. Using your mutation has always been hard on you, I understand that. Also, I know you retain the memories of those you've absorbed. Having all those people inside your head is hard enough without adding the thoughts of an insane man to the mix. He was institutionalized for a reason. Let me help you."

"No one can help me deal with this shit," she spat. "It's my head. There's so much goin' on inside my head, so it's not like you can give me a pill or have Doctor Leigha give me a new brain."

_"I'm the one person who can help you,"_ Charles said inside her mind. _"Let me remove the memories from you or at least bury them so deeply inside your brain they will no longer torment you."_

Rogue went stiff all over for two point five seconds before she realized what he was trying to do. He wanted to take Brogan away from her, to render her all alone again. No, she would never be truly alone, she noted to herself. With so many personalities swimming around inside her, she could never be alone, but Charles wanted to take the one person away from her who loved her like a man loved a woman despite her inability to touch. Such would not be allowed.

Flinging herself from the chair, she kicked said chair away from her, the force of her kick breaking it into pieces when it slammed into a nearby wall. Something she had once absorbed from Jean activated instinctively, grabbed hold of Charles' presence in her head, and forcefully threw him out. The professor's shock was evident in the widening of his eyes and nostrils. Usually, she couldn't use mutations she had absorbed beyond a certain period of time, at least that was what she had thought, but was it possible the mutations had imprinted inside her? Her head cocked to the side as she watched Charles like a hawk.

"Stay outta my head," she warned.

"Then talk to me, Rogue. I can't help you unless you let me, and you know deep down all I want to do is help you."

"I don't need your help. Look, I get that you're all worried about me, but this is just like every other time I've absorbed someone's energies. Remember when I ran around actin' like a miniature Logan when he touched me at the Statue of Liberty? That's all this is. After enough time passes, I'll be able to stop acting like Flesh. I'll go back to normal."

"Flesh, is that what the man called himself?"

"Yeah. His real name was Adam Bancroft, but when he… When he went insane, he started calling himself Flesh, because he loves the taste of human skin."

"Concentrate on someone else's memories. Call up the memories of Jean or Scott, someone who is calmer than he is and stay focused on them. It may help you resist any urges you get from Flesh."

She turned again to look out the window over the garden and its hedge maze. "Do you know whose memories are the most comforting? Magneto's. I don't know why. Does that make me like him?"

"No," Charles said without hesitation. "Eric has always been so sure of his purpose, singularly focused on bringing his purpose to reality that it's not surprising your memories of him can be soothing. He approaches everything he does with a calm assurance that what he puts his mind to will be the outcome. Allow yourself to feel him right now if that's what helps."

"You had better take me off active duty until I can get my head sorted out again. You can't have some crazy ass bitch out there in an X suit threatenin' to eat peoples' intestines. I'd end up gettin' everybody killed."

"You aren't a bitch or crazy. Don't ever let me hear you say that about yourself again. If you won't let me help you at least do me a favor and stay with Logan at night so he can watch over you. Talk to him about what's going on, because I'm sure you can imagine just how worried he is."

"Fine," she drawled. "Can I be excused now?" At least she wasn't so far in the grips of Flesh's memories she had forgotten how to use basic manners.

"Yes, you may."

Rogue was out of Charles' office as though Flesh had come back to life and was intent on turning her into a rump roast. Surprisingly, the one person she wanted was John. He'd never been quite right in the head, so maybe he would know what to make of what she was going through and be able to understand when the others couldn't. Wait, she didn't need John anymore. He'd deserted them all in favor of Magnojerk, the man who had tried to kill her with his fanaticism. That he didn't want to see them, hear from them, or have them care about him was plainly obvious after almost five years of silence. Well, that was just fine. He could shove his hand up his own ass and roast himself like a marshmallow for all she cared. Besides, she had Brogan now.

_"That's right, I'll take care of you, Rogue,"_ Brogan whispered in her ear.

A smile brightened her features when she felt his arm come around her waist to snuggle her back against his chest. "You'll never leave me?"

_"Never. You need me too much."_

"That's right," she said. "I can't exist without you anymore."

"Who you talkin' to, Kid?" Logan asked from a bench located around the corner from Charles' office.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: There is canon support in the Ultimate comics that Peter Parker and the X-Men mingled, hence his appearance here with John. The ending section to this chapter is pretty dark. Be warned.

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Chapter 3

Saint John Allerdyce…Saint John…John. He turned his name over in his mind, testing it, weighing it like it was something that could be calculated and measured while staring at the blinking cursor flashing on the blank page pulled up on his computer. His name. Mystique would call it his "slave name" and that his real name was Pryo, but what did the name Saint John say about him? That he was a saint, obviously, and everything he did was right, true, and just, but John was such a common, bland name. The common man who could do no wrong? The common man who was capable of becoming a saint? What was that stupid Shakespeare line Bobby had spent the better part of a week mumbling during his literature class?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," he muttered to himself. So whether or not his name was Pyro or Saint John Allerdyce, did that mean he would still be himself?

"Reciting Shakespeare to yourself, Allerdyce? Either she was really hot, really good in bed, or hasn't given it up yet," Parker drawled.

John offered Parker a flat expression, refusing to blush at having been caught reciting Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" to himself. What disturbed him worse than having been caught doing something so girly was how quietly Parker had come up on him. Magneto would bark at him that he was losing his edge. It was Magneto's fault he was even in this damned newspaper office to begin with! Imagine him, Pyro, one of the commanders of the Brotherhood, holding down a normal job like his equally normal name just because Magneto had told him he was too distant. Like Magneto cared how distant he was so long as he continued to function in combat. Personally, he thought he was just being tortured for becoming what Magneto had urged him to become.

"It's none of your business," he quipped before returning his attention to the maddening blink of the cursor.

"She must not have given it up yet then. You got a phone call holding on line two, and the next time you want somebody to screen your calls, hire a damned secretary."

Why in the Hell did he put up with Parker? Right, because he was fascinated by him for the time being, but that would no doubt change fairly soon. Anyone who was ballsy enough to step between him and his quarry and send him for a dunk in a fountain to "chill" deserved his fascination no matter how fleeting it would be. Nothing could hold his interest for any length of time. That wasn't right. There was one person who had been able to hold his fascination for the past four years eleven months, one week, and three days. Rogue. He wasn't quite certain what his fascination with her stemmed from. Perhaps that was the very reason he was still captivated.

"Your head gets any higher, they're gonna be bouncing satellite waves off you," Parker said, interrupting his musings yet again. "Dude, phone! The guy said it was kind of an emergency."

Another irritated glance was thrown Parker's way before John glanced down at the phone and the blinking green light showing there was a caller waiting on line two. Something of an emergency? There were either emergencies or there were situations in which people panicked, fucked things up, and then wanted to label them as emergencies.

Rolling his eyes, he finally picked the phone up off the cradle. "John Allerdyce."

Nothing prepared him for the voice he heard over the receiver saying, "John, it's Bobby, and if you hang up, I swear on a stack of 'The Complete Works of Shakespeare' I'll hunt you down and turn your balls into a tiny ice sculpture."

John almost dropped the receiver. In fact, if Parker, the nosy bastard, hadn't made himself comfortable in a chair across his desk, he probably would have that was how shocked he was to be hearing that particular voice. "Bobby," he said in recognition. What the Hell was Bobby calling him for after so many years? His cell phone certainly hadn't been singing a symphony with his former-friend-turned-nemesis trying to get in touch with him outside of an "it's something of an emergency" moment.

"Okay, so you haven't hung up yet. Look, I don't know if you care or if you even want to know, but Rogue's not doing well."

He sat up straighter in his chair and instantly shut down his computer to get it tucked away in its laptop case. "What's wrong with her? She's not sick, is she?" Bobby had only called him because something was wrong with Rogue. That he could deal with. That he knew how to respond to.

"Professor X sent us on a mission to help mop up after a security breech at Belleveue, and Rogue was forced into killing one of the patients with her skin mutation. She hasn't been herself since. We're all really worried about her."

"You sure it's not the same thing she went through after the Statue of Liberty incident?" he asked. He wasn't going to wager on Bobby, or any of the X-Men for that matter, putting two and two together when they couldn't scratch their asses without Xavier's permission.

"Dude, I'm not a fucking idiot, so quit talking to me like I'm four. Would I have bothered trying to track you down if I thought it was anything like that when you've made it plainly obvious you don't want to have shit to do with us anymore?"

"Your idiot status is debatable," he snarked, "but it's just like you X-Freaks to sit around with your thumbs up your ass. I'm sure you've passed the case off to Xavier and are waiting around for him to fix it for you."

He heard Bobby sigh over the connection. "If you're going to act like that, then I never should have called you. I just thought you'd like to know since you and Rogue were pretty good friends before you left the mansion."

"No, you called for my reassurance and because you know this is over Xavier's head. If you'd really been concerned about whether or not I wanted to keep tabs on Rogue, you would have called when she was in that car accident and laid up for two weeks waiting for Logan's mutation to heal her." John did cringe then, cringed at having blurted out information that clearly said he had been keeping tabs on Rogue.

"Just stop, John. You're right. I am a fucking idiot for ever worrying about you, and I'm definitely an even bigger fucking idiot for thinking you might want to come back to see Rogue. Five minutes with your superior-than-thou attitude, and she'd fly off the handle and rip your spine out your ass."

"You… want me to come back?" But John was talking to static and then an empty dial tone. Bobby had hung up on him! How dare Bobby hang up on Saint Pyro! Errr… Saint John. What-the-fuck-ever.

He slammed the receiver back down on its cradle and proceeded to stare at the phone. Bobby would call back. If the brat had gone to the trouble of tracking him down and calling John in the first place, he would call back. Wouldn't he? Flustered, John's fingers started drumming on the surface of his desk. Ring, damnit!

"Stare any harder at that phone, and you just might achieve total combustion without the need for a lighter," Parker said, still seated across the desk.

"How dare the little punk hang up on me," hissed John.

"I'd hang up on your rude ass too if I were him."

That earned Parker another irritated glance. "It's impossible for me to be considered rude when I was just stating the truth."

"You called him an idiot and an X-Freak," Parked pointed out. "Now, you can either sit there staring at the phone for the next hour, or you can call him back and tell him you're on your way."

"Not even threatening to turn me into an ice sculpture would make me pick up that phone. SAINT John Allerdyce doesn't beg."

Parker made what John considered a very put-upon sigh before yanking up the phone and punching in a series of numbers that sent a jolt of panic straight through John, panic that almost made him bolt over the desk to sit on Parker and keep him from completing the call. He would have if it hadn't been for the type-setter suddenly coming into the office to take a seat behind her desk, or at least that's what John told himself. Honestly, why the Hell did he put up with Parker again? Right, because no one in their right mind would do what Parker was doing, which obviously meant Parker wasn't in his right mind, and that was…kinda fascinating. Bugger.

"Bobby, isn't it?" Parker began when the connection was made. "This is Peter. I talked to you before handing you over to John. Allerdyce would like to apologize for his rude behavior. The only excuse he has for being an utter ass is that he's had too much Red Bull combined with not nearly enough sleep."

John grabbed up a pad of paper to leave Parker a message that said, "You are so dead. Allerdyce would NOT like to apologize for his rude behavior!" Not was underlined several times and was joined by a little doodle of Parker in flames.

"I completely understand, Bobby, but you know how he is." There was a pause as Bobby said something John couldn't make out. "No, that's not it at all. He really does want to come back to the mansion, but he doesn't want anyone to think he's begging." Another short pause. "Yeah, I agree. He thinks he's a badass whose ego has gotten so big you want to put the smack down on him, but if you ask him to come back to the mansion and visit Rogue, he promises to be on his best behavior."

At which point John left another written note for Parker that said, "Death isn't good enough for you. We're gonna have a good old-fashioned barbie, and you're going to be the main fucking course. Barbequed spider legs."

"I have no idea, Bobby, but once you spend enough time around him, you realize he's just a big teddy bear who's afraid of rejection and afraid of being vulnerable."

"Shut your fucking cake hole, Parker!" John yelled while jumping to his feet and grabbing the receiver out of Parker's hand. "Don't you dare listen to a fucking word he says, Bobby. Parker forgot to take his damned medication today, but he's going to do just that before I put my foot up his Goddamned ass."

Was that a smirk on Parker's face? Fuck yes! He was bloody smirking like he'd just gotten his… John groaned inwardly and smacked a hand over his forehead. It wasn't often anyone could manage to manipulate him, but Parker had just done it handily. The entire conversation had been for John's benefit, to maneuver him into doing just what he'd done when he took the phone. Clever little geektastic bastard. So his fascination with Parker might last a little longer than normal.

"Behave," Parker said while unfolding himself from his chair, clapping John on the shoulder, and moving away from the area.

Behave indeed.

"You still there, John?" Bobby asked over the phone.

"Yes," John muttered.

"We want you to come home."

It was that last word that got John's attention, that froze the retort perched on his lips. Home. After years of moving from bunker to bunker with Magneto, home was a distant memory for him. Had he ever really felt at home at the mansion? Yes. The answer came unbidden, because there had been a time when he'd felt at home at the Xavier Institute For Gifted Youngsters. Before his mutation had started growing more and more unpredictable, before the terrible fear he would accidentally burn down the mansion, before the nightmares had started, the mansion had been home.

"I'll be there in two hours," he grumbled.

***

"Kid, you in here?" Logan called from the doorway of Rogue's room. Tanks couldn't drag him away from fulfilling the promise Charlie had dragged from Rogue to sleep in the same room with him from now on. She hadn't come puttering into his suite dragging the giant stuffed giraffe she liked to snuggle behind her, so he was damn well going to go to her even if it meant sitting up in a chair all night.

His heart had never failed him before, but he thought it just might stop beating when there was no immediate response from inside Rogue's private room. They'd had to move her to a private room even before she had graduated after an incident where one of the kids had stumbled into her in the middle of the night when she was in a dorm room. He rapped sharply a second time. Still no response, and a sudden panic lurched through Logan. Something was wrong with his baby!

Taking a step back, he put his foot against the door to send it crashing inward off its hinges at the same time he unsheathed his claws. The state of Rogue's room didn't do anything to dispel that panic. Not even seeing her pop her head up over the side of the bed from where she was huddling between the bed and the far wall could calm him, because her room looked like Ororo had lost control of her mutation and had set a tornado down directly inside the room. His baby was a clean freak, but now, there were clothes strewn everywhere. Pictures had been knocked off the walls. Even the bed had been stripped of its linens. Needless to say, the sight turned his stomach.

Gulping down a breath when she made no move to greet him or come out from behind the bed, Logan did what most people thought was beyond his capability: He calmed himself. The frightened expression on her face was enough to force the calm in him, because if he snapped, roared, or had any kind of a hissy fit, it would only spook her all the more. That was the absolute last thing he wanted to do after hearing her talking to someone earlier who plainly hadn't been there.

"Hey, Kid," he began as calmly as possible while picking his way through the mess toward the bed, "Charlie said you were going to come stay with me tonight. You want some help dragging your giraffe around?"

"I forgot," she muttered.

"That's what I figured, but I'm here now, so we'll get you some stuff together and head down to my room."

"Do I have to? I kinda like it here. It's safe."

Another gulp and he eased onto the bed so he could get closer to her, but what he saw when he finally leaned over to spy the little nest she had made for herself with the pillows and blankets made him want to piss himself. His baby, whom he had officially adopted last year to the delight of everyone, had managed to catch a rat, had staked it spread-eagle through its little arms and legs, and was in the process of autopsying it alive. At least he thought it was still alive. His throat ached to scream for Jeanie, Leigha, and Charlie, because surely they would know what to do.

Instead, all he said in his mildest tone was, "Whacha doin' there, Kid?"

"Brogan said it was looking at me funny," she muttered without really acknowledging Logan's presence.

Shit, shit, and quadruple shit! Logan's heart did stop beating only to restart a moment later, at least he figured it restarted because he wasn't flopping around on the floor. Part of him wished his heart had completely stopped. Watching his baby go through something like this… It was almost worth dying to be spared from the absolute terror pumping through his veins, a terror unlike anything he had ever felt before. When he'd found her in that bar in Canada, she'd become his, his responsibility, his friend, his child in every way that would ever matter. Hell, he'd fought it kicking and screaming, but there had been no denying the vulnerability in Rogue's eyes. Leaving her standing on that snow-covered road would have haunted him for the rest of his life, so he had claimed her as his. No one would ever touch him the way Rogue had touched him.

Then he had made a promise to her to always take care of her. It was his job to protect her, damnit, but he couldn't protect her from this, couldn't make her brain all better the way he was able to make her body better by touching her, and deep down, Logan knew this was all his fault. He never should have allowed her inside that damned asylum. He should have known something was wrong, should have gotten there in time to save her from absorbing that fucked up bastard.

"Is Brogan here now?" he thought to ask.

Rogue suddenly looked up at him as though she were seeing him for the first time and couldn't figure out when he had come into the room. "Dad? Shit! I forgot I promised the professor I would stay with you until we got this figured out and I stopped acting like a psycho who needs to do the Haldol shuffle!"

The relief was so great his arms actually started trembling. At first, all he could do was sit there and breathe to purge the fear out of him, but he gathered Rogue up and lifted her up onto the bed as soon as he was able, burying his face against her hair. His nostrils flared. She didn't smell normal, didn't smell like the strawberry shampoo she'd become obsessed with recently or even the Smiley Face cookies Leigha had bought for her at the local bakery Rogue so enjoyed. She smelled stale, as though she hadn't showered since before they'd left for the asylum, smoky from his cigars, and faintly of female cum. The last smell was shoved forcefully out of his head when to dwell on it would no doubt send him into a rage.

"S'okay, Kid. Don't worry about that shit right now." After gathering her up in his arms, he retrieved her stuffed giraffe and couldn't get out of the room fast enough to get her ensconced in his own suite downstairs on the infirmary level. Don't worry about that shit right now?! What else could he do but worry?!


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

There was no one moving down the corridor to the left or to the right of her current position, not a single person in sight, but Rogue knew that just as soon as she started talking to Brogan, some asswipe would round the bend and interrupt her. Brogan had cautioned her against speaking to him when others were around. He said they would never understand, that they would never accept his love for her and would try to take him away if they found out about their relationship. She'd argued endlessly that her dad would understand out of all of them. Surely Logan would realize how happy she was with Brogan if for no other reason than because her dad wanted her to be happy.

_"You're beautiful today, Rogue,"_ he finally said once she had ascertained that the hallways were clear.

The compliment had her smiling and smoothing a hand down the front of the crimson dress she was wearing. She never got to wear dresses, damnit, because of her fucked up skin mutation. Why did it have to be her responsibility to make sure other people didn't brush up against her skin when they could just as easily not get close enough for an accident to happen? But nooooooo, she had to mummify herself at all times. She had to be the responsible one. What if she was sick to death of being responsible and just wanted to be a normal twenty-one-year-old?

_"Did you enjoy it when I touched you last night?"_ Brogan asked. _"It's a good thing we were finished when Logan kicked your door down. He simply wouldn't understand how much we need to be together."_

"You keep saying that, but my dad would want me to be happy. He would learn to like you, maybe even come to see you as his kid the way he has me," she whispered.

_"Don't you remember the way he looked at you when he caught us talking yesterday? He looked at you like he was afraid. He's afraid I'm going to take you away from him, so we must keep our relationship a secret."_

"You're right, Brogan, but you're always right, aren't you." Giggling, she leaned back against the wall and let her eyes slide closed, stealing these few minutes in private. Of course he was right. No one would understand. They all wanted her to be alone, to suffer the terrible isolation of having to watch other couples snatch kisses when they thought no one was looking.

"Honey, who are you talking to?" Ororo's voice, her hint of an African accent, immediately jarred Rogue out of the happiness and safety she found with Brogan.

Rogue's eyes flicked open, her expression flattening only to be followed up by a slight twitching in the muscles along her jaw line. Only then did her upper lip curl back to expose her teeth in what should have been clear warning to Ororo that she needed to retreat while retreat was still an option. The sudden an instantaneous fear that Ororo would try to take Brogan away from her as he suggested she would curdled her gut. There was no thinking beyond the perhaps irrational impulse to hurt the woman for daring to sneak up on her and daring to threaten Brogan.

_"She's going to take me away from you!"_ Brogan cried.

"Sweetie?" Ororo began, taking a step forward instead of a step backward as she should be taking. "Let me take you to find Logan or the professor."

"I don't want Logan or the professor," Rogue snarled.

Her hands clenched and unclenched repeatedly while wrestling with the basic urge to hurt before she was hurt, to hurt just because it would feel good to know someone else was hurting for a change. This time, there was no controlling the instinct, and Rogue hurled herself forward at Ororo with such strength the impact of the collision sent them both flying into and through the opposite wall in a shower of splintering wood where they landed in a tangle of limbs on the conservatory floor where a class was in session. Screams from the startled children were lost on her when she was in the grips of such deep rage. Blood. She had to have blood, had to have the metallic taste on her tongue, had to feel the rubbery tear of veins between her teeth.

Some demented sound that was a mixture between a moan of orgasmic anticipation and a snarl of unfettered animalism left her throat a second before her teeth shot toward Ororo's temporarily unprotected throat. Teeth locked onto the other woman's flesh, but before she could squeeze hard enough to break the skin, Ororo clamped her fingers on the ridge of muscle along the top of Rogue's shoulder, rendering her entire arm aching and cramping. It was enough to take her immediate attention away from tasting the woman's blood to defending against an oncoming attack.

Knocking Ororo's hands to the side and then capturing them and pinning them to the floor was laughably easy considering how much stronger Rogue was, and then her attention returned to the woman's jugular, a slight smirk curling her lips at the corners. Fresh meat. That was all she needed, just to get one taste of fresh blood and meat and then she would be able to calm down and take control of her life again. Her teeth were bared when she dropped her head toward Ororo's throat for a second time.

She didn't reach her target. Ororo's eyes clouded and went milky white only to be followed by a gusting wind howling through the conservatory to buffet Rogue with such force she lost her grip on the other woman's hands. Once her grip had gone slack, there was nothing to anchor her to the floor, so she went sailing into the far wall with a hard enough impact as to be temporarily rendered dazed. Her head shook from side to side in an attempt to clear out the cobwebs so she could gather her scattered wits

The instinctive part of her took over again, bringing a wall of ice--a gift from the one time she had tried kissing Bobby--up in front of her to shelter her from the winds. Up and over she went rocketing from behind the shelter once she had recovered from the impact while stripping off a glove in mid-air. Only when she was directly over Ororo did she dive straight on top of the other woman, her hand clamping around Ororo's upper arm with flesh on flesh contact. Her mutation activated almost immediately. This was what it was supposed to feel like, this draining that was somehow exhilarating without the fetters of guilt weighing her down. More. She needed, desperately wanted, more, all of it, every single drop of Ororo's energy to fuel her.

_"Do it, my love,"_ Brogan whispered in her ear. _"Kill her before she tells the others. They will take you where I can't be with you, where I can't protect you. Do it!"_

Kill Ororo? But… she didn't want to kill her, did she? Ororo had always been kind to her, had taken Rogue under a wing to teach her control over her ability to fly. She only wanted to make Ororo stop hurting her, only wanted to keep anyone from taking Brogan away from her. Her hand lifted away from the other woman's face, and that was all the hesitation Ororo needed to call up another wind that sent Rogue careening through the ice wall she had left standing and flattening against the far wall. A hiss of breath swept through her teeth as she fought to tear herself away from the wall, but the strength of the wind kept her pinned there at least until Rogue felt Ororo's mutation coursing through her.

A primitive growl was all it took to focus herself, and in the next instant, her temporary nemesis slammed into the opposite wall when Rogue seized control of the wind and turned it back on Ororo. Rogue didn't think, wasn't capable of making a rational choice, when she flew across the space separating them with every intention of slamming Ororo's head into the wall until she saw brain matter flecking her hands. The only thing that mattered was releasing the violence bubbling inside her like a kettle ready to explode. She would allow it to explode on this hapless woman.

"Rogue Howlett, stop what you're doing this instant!" Jean cried.

Jean didn't give her the option of complying on her own, because Rogue slammed to a halt as though someone had attached an invisible chain to her back. For a few moments, all she could do was hang there in mid-motion, but then she was turned away from Ororo and to face Jean. One of Rogue's chocolate brows arched in question as though to ask what Jean thought she was doing interrupting dinner time.

"Stay calm, and let me take you to the infirmary where Leigha is going to do her best to find out what's wrong. We all know this is more than you simply taking on some personality traits, but you have to cooperate and let us help you."

_"I told you they would take you away from me,"_ Brogan said just behind her ear, _"but you wouldn't listen. Now they're going to make you go away. They're going to leave you in some terrible white room with a bunch of doctors pumping you so full of medication I'll never be able to talk to you or make love to you again."_

"Stop it! Everyone just shut the fuck up!" Rogue cried while slamming the heels of her palms against her ears. She didn't want to hurt Jean, but Jean wasn't going to give her any choice. Jean wanted her to cooperate, to let the others help her. Did that mean they really were going to take her away and have her pumped full of medications that would make her drool down her chest? She was so damned confused!

The sight of Leigha hurrying into the conservatory with a syringe in her hand was what set Rogue off. They were going to have her doing the Haldol shuffle! Her whine was so full of pain and betrayal she almost didn't recognize the sound of her own voice when she made use of Jean's mutation to break the force holding her immobile. Ororo's mutation, so newly gained, was made use of a second later to send lighting shooting toward both red-heads--no wonder her dad was fascinated with Leigha when she had all that red hair that looked so much like Jean's--to either keep them back or immobilize them. If she wasn't safe at the mansion, she would simply have to flee it.

Rogue was in the process of rocketing toward the ceiling, her hands fisted in front of her, with every intention of busting through it when she felt something prick into her skin. Yelping, she grabbed at the dart protruding from the back of her shoulder, but it was too late. The drug was already pumping through her veins. She twisted around in mid-air to see her dad dropping a tranquilizer gun and dashing forward as she dropped out of the air. He'd shot her… Logan had actually shot her with a tranquilizer dart. There was nothing she could do to halt her descent when the sedative was already making her woozy, so she was actually grateful when she dropped squarely into her dad's arms.

***

Could Xavier really be such a sap that he refused to change the locks on the front door of the mansion so that old students could return to pay everyone a visit? This was Charles Xavier he was talking about. Of course he could be that big of a sap. John was proven right when the old key he still carried with him unlocked the front door. Yep, sap. Shouldering his duffle, he looked back once at the metallic orange Hummer now parked in the driveway, a sense of something akin to panic prompting him to take a step back in the direction of his Hummer instead of striding into his former playground. He should leave. Shit, he shouldn't even contemplate walking back into that school to be surrounded by all those schmucks sitting around waiting for Xavier to tug on their strings.

He let his eyes slide closed and brought to mind the first image that wanted to take a stroll behind his eyes. An image of Rogue appeared. Her visage was still as strong, still as vivid, as the day he had left with Magneto. She was so enduringly good-natured, even if half of it was an act to keep everyone from knowing how much she was affected by her mutation, so fresh compared to the other girls at the mansion. No, fresh wasn't the right word. It made her sound like a slab of steak the butcher had just wrapped up for sale. Satisfying. Satiating. Sensual. Sassafras. Sass, yes that was the right word. She was never afraid to say what was on her mind, never afraid of him no matter how foul his mood was or how hard he tried to push her away to keep her from befriending him.

John allowed himself a rare smile. Any girl who laughed instead of smacking him when he suggested they go to Dairy Queen to moon the drive-thru attendant when he had meant to ask her if she wanted to go get a burger with him had to be pretty cool, but eloquent speech had always deserted him when she was around. The words would be right there on the tip of his tongue; "Will you go out with me?" Somewhere between the path to his brain and his tongue, the words always got mixed up until all that came out was something inherently stupid, sexist, or full of bravado. Still she had befriended him in ways not even Bobby could have befriended him. Of course then Bobby had to start liking her, that bastard, and they'd had a pact between them that if they both liked a girl, neither would ask her out. Funny how Bobby had conveniently forgotten that pact when Rogue was involved. The bastard.

John was just turning his attention back to the Hummer and the easy escape it provided him when the front door jerked open and pulled his attention back. A sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach nearly sent him into a full-blown panic when he saw Bobby filling the doorway. A gigantic, tall, fit, muscular, tall, lean, GQ-wearing, tall slice of American apple pie descending on him with arms wide open that nearly had John screeching at the knowledge he was about to be glomped in a bear-hug that just might break his ribs. He didn't want to be hugged! Couldn't Bobby see "fuck off, I hate touch" tattooed on his forehead?!

Apparently not, because he found himself crushed against his former-friend-turned-nemesis' chest tight enough he swore his nose was going to break from being pressed into the solid wall of muscle in front of him. Ewwwww! John shuddered, flopped around uselessly in a token effort to try to get himself released, and finally faced the realization that it was either submit and allow himself to be hugged or get personal-space-raped rather he liked it or not.

"You're giving me the uh oh feeling," he muttered against Bobby's chest.

"Dude, if you ever take off for five years again without calling, I'm going to hot glue your damned feet to the floor. Just because you wanted to suck Magneto's bum doesn't mean we had to stop talking."

"I'd love to argue the point, but I can't breathe with you gripping me like I'm a damned undiscovered Shakespearean play."

That gained his instant release before Bobby said, "Come on, John, and admit it. You could have called."

"I didn't hear my cell phone ringing incessantly with you trying to call me."

"It was pretty clear you didn't want to have anything to do with us when you took off with Magneto without so much as a goodbye."

"You wouldn't understand."

"Then make me understand, John, because I've spent the past five years wondering whether or not you really are an asshole or were just having delusions of grandeur."

"If you really don't know why I left, then I'm not going to sit here and explain it to you, so just get out of my way so I can go help Rogue."

Bobby shook his head and made an exasperated sound before saying, "You sound like one of those chicks we used to make fun of, the kind who respond 'if you don't know me well enough to know what I want for my birthday, then just don't bother getting me anything.' My mutation isn't telepathy, remember?"

"I'm going to forget you just called me a girl," John said while wrinkling his nose, but he didn't know if it was out of disgust at Bobby or self-disgust, because Bobby was kind of right. "Magneto understands the inherent frailty of humans, something Xavier refuses to admit. I merely went where I could do the most good for mutant-kind."

"That's a load of bullshit. No, you might really have thought that at the time, but there was something else, something more personal or you wouldn't have a vendetta against me."

"There's nothing else to tell," John ground out from between clenched teeth. Bobby really didn't need to know about his enduring crush on Rogue, didn't need to know something as seemingly silly as a girl had been part of what had driven him away from the mansion when Saint Pyro Allerdyce was supposed to be above all those emotional needs like being close to a woman.

Bobby must have decided further prodding would get him nowhere, because he gave up that line of questioning in favor of saying, "I'm glad you came. Rogue has taken a turn for the worse, and they've had to sedate her and put her into an drug-induced coma. Jean caught her attacking Ororo in the conservatory."

"It was Rogue Howlett in the conservatory with the wrench." But he wasn't surprised when Bobby gave him a look that clearly said "what the fuck?" "Nevermind," he said. "Been sitting around on your asses waiting for Xavier to figure out what's wrong as always. Don't worry. I brought a brain that wasn't signed over to Xavier upon admittance to the school." He tapped his temple.

"I swear if it weren't for Rogue, I'd kick your ass. Leave the snark on the front door or Logan's going to tear your head off before letting you get near Rogue. I didn't call you to figure anything out. I called you because I thought Rogue could use all the support she could get, and we haven't been sitting around on our asses! Kitty hacked into Bancroft's records at Belleveue to give us a better idea of what we're dealing with."

Good. They were back into territory John could deal with. Fighting and friction were so much easier to handle than all the hugs and good will. "What did she find out?" he asked while pushing past Bobby to get inside.

"Bancroft was admitted in 2018 with schizophrenia and MPD. His doctor was able to bring out and talk to twelve different personalities, the most aggressive of which is someone named Flesh, who is a cannibal and a sadist."

"So when she absorbed him, she also absorbed his personalities and his mental illness. Let me guess, Xavier is attempting to remove the personalities from her by taking out her memories of the event."

"Which is easier said than done, because apparently all the mutations Rogue has absorbed throughout the years have somehow remained in her on an instinctive level. Every time the professor tries to get into her mind, she throws him out. They're hoping sedating her will allow him to access her mind."

"Won't work," John said while rushing through the halls to the one access elevator that would take them down to the infirmary level. "She's got Logan's healing mutation mixed in with all the rest, so the thorazine won't stay in her system long enough to let Xavier remove all the personalities."

John never hated being right, but on this occasion, he almost wished he could, because when he stepped into the infirmary, he stepped into chaos. Logan was flattened on top of Rogue in an attempt to hold down the struggling ball of fury that was his kid while Scott fought to get chains manacled on the woman's arms. Those had better be adamantium chains otherwise it was a useless endeavor. A small redhead with delicate features was yelling at Jean to get her another vial of thorazine. Xavier was merely sitting in his wheelchair watching it all, but John doubted Xavier was merely watching. In fact, he looked almost frightened and then squeezed his eyes closed as though struggling mentally with Rogue.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"Give her the same dose you would give me!" Logan roared in the midst of the chaos. He was about two seconds away from having a full blown panic attack, because his baby girl was broken! Absorbing personalities may usually give her some weird personality quirks, but to outright attack Ororo? His baby might have killed Ororo if they hadn't all gotten there in time to distract her!

Rogue suddenly went limp as her eyes rolled back in her head, but Leigha was still waiting for Jean to get the extra vial of thorazine to put his kid back under. Wary, Logan eased the grip he had on her wrists but realized his mistake too late when Rogue shoved her palms against his chest with enough force to send him flying off the infirmary table they were attempting to chain her to. He knew his baby was strong, but she had just thrown his adamantium frame like the weight was little more than a feather. The shocking realization that his kid really was stronger than him sent a cold chill through his abdomen. Logically, he had known since the presentation of her secondary mutations she was stronger, but it took her using such force against him to really drive it home.

As he slammed into the wall hard enough to put cracks in the concrete, his second realization didn't just turn his abdomen cold; it froze the very blood in his veins. If her condition escalated and forced a full-scale confrontation, he wasn't entirely certain she could be beaten, not while being able to make full use of every mutation she had ever touched. He cracked his neck while picking himself up from the floor and waited the few seconds it took for the damage to his back muscles to heal before stomping back in Rogue's direction.

Scott got there first. One-Eye somehow managed to get one of her wrists clamped into an adamantium shackle while she was distracted by Charlie. "Get outta my head, Cripple!" she shrieked. Her shriek was followed by Charlie rocking back in his chair and putting a hand to his head. But as soon as Rogue realized what Scott had done, she seized hold of his throat before he had the opportunity to retreat and yanked him down closer to her face.

"Let go," Scott choked out past the girl's constricting hand.

"I want to eat your flesh," she said, her voice pitched low. "The metallic taste of your blood would be a delicacy to me. There is nothing more satisfying than feeling your flesh give way beneath my teeth, the soft puncture through the outer skin into the soft tissue. I'm starving."

Desperation to get there in time and avoid the necessity of really hurting his baby fueled his charge that closed the three-step gap between him and Rogue where he grabbed hold of her wrist. Trying to pry her fingers off Scott's throat, however, was like trying to pry the adamantium off his bones. It simply wasn't happening short of breaking her bones. The thought sickened him, but Scott was starting to turn a little blue from lack of oxygen. Scott's life or Rogue's fingers. His decision making faculties turned chicken shit on him, because he simply couldn't face that choice, was afraid if he had to, he would choose Rogue's fingers over Scott's life.

"Rogue, you'll kill him if you don't let go, Sweetie. He can't breathe!" Jeanie cried.

"My name isn't fucking Rogue!"

"Everyone stop attacking her," a new voice, a voice he hadn't heard in a very long time, said from the doorway. "Flesh, no one will hurt you or Adam if you'll release Summers. Everyone is going to back away from you and calm their asses down. We got a deal?"

Rogue's eyes flicked in the direction of the doorway. Whether it was hearing John's voice or John's weird ass deal--Logan really didn't want to know the state of John's mind if he knew how to make deals with psycho cannibals--that got her to ease her grip on Scott's throat was a mystery to him, but he'd damn well share his cigars with the kid for getting her to calm down. As soon as Rogue's grip went totally lax, Scott was able to stumble backward and gasp for breath.

"Good, now everyone just be calm and back away from our new mate. Flesh, my name's Saint John. I'm gonna make sure no one tries to hurt you again, and you're going to stop being such a prick and trying to gnaw on everybody. Sound like a plan to you?"

Rogue, or Flesh, or Adam, or whoever the fuck she was right now was clearly wary as her jaw clenched and unclenched. "Remove this chain."

"Sorry, Mate, can't do that until we know you're not gonna run around trying to eat people. Yeah, they're pretty fucking annoying with their soft, cuddly, let's sit around a campfire singing Kumbaya vibes, but they're rather attached to their skin."

Tension crackled through the room, made the air almost too thick to breathe while Logan stood there pumping his fists and aching to light a cigar or go find a fucking doobie to mellow his worried ass out. Suddenly, Leigha, the ballsy doctor, was behind Rogue and laying a hand on his baby's shoulder, breaking the momentary stillness of the room. His kid slammed her head backward into the doctor's face, but Leigha didn't let go. Fearless was a pretty good word, but what the fuck did she think she was going to accomplish? Leigha was five and a half feet tall and a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. Did she think she was going to restrain Rogue?

Logan was in motion again, surging forward in an attempt to catch his kid around the middle to get her pinned to the table, but before he could accomplish that goal, Rogue suddenly sank onto the table, the fight going out of her. Whatever the doctor had done seemed to have taken Rogue's strength but certainly hadn't fixed her by the look of absolute fury she was leveling on Leigha.

"I'll put it back when you're better. I swear it to you, Rogue," Leigha was saying while replacing the IV line in his kid's arm and opening up the drip to get the drug in her system. Such a large dose only took a moment to work.

"Professor!" Rogue suddenly cried, that sense of deep madness finally leaving her eyes as they started drooping toward unconsciousness.

"I'm here, Rogue," Charlie said. The whir of his wheelchair engine preceded him rolling up to the examination table. "When you wake up, everything will be all right. They won't be inside you anymore."

"Don't make my dad kill me. Please, anyone but him. He would never recover. Promise me, Professor. Promise me someone else will do it."

"Stop talkin' like that, Kid. Ain't nobody gonna kill you, and that's all there is to it. Charlie's gonna make everything all right again, so you just stop talking about anyone killin' you."

"Promise me!"

Charlie smoothed a hand over Rogue's brow softly before saying, "I promise. Now stop worrying about that and allow yourself to relax."

"I'm sorry," she breathed, and Logan thought he heard a helpless whine in her tone that drove splinters of pain right through his heart. "I don't know how to fight it anymore. They're so strong. They won't shut up and leave me alone no matter how hard I try to make them. Tell Scott I'm sorry."

"He knows you didn't mean it, Kid." Helpless tears stung the back of his eyes. It was all he could do to keep from having a full-blown mental episode himself, but he would damn well hold it together for Rogue's sake.

The minute Rogue's eyes finally closed when the thorazine put her under, Logan slumped onto the nearest chair and buried his fingers in his hair. He wanted to bawl like a baby, wanted to crawl into a dark corner and curl up until all of this was over and his baby was better again, wanted to run to the farthest corner of the world to escape the Hell of worrying about Rogue, but right now, she needed him to be strong. No questions asked. If that's what his kid needed, that's what she would get. Period. End of story. No need for discussion.

It took him a moment to realize the doctor was smoothing a hand over his shoulder. What the Hell? His brow furrowed when he understood what she was up, that she was trying to give him some small measure of comfort, and he really didn't feel like pointing out there could be no comfort for him when Rogue was like this. Still, he didn't break her hand or attempt to knock it off his shoulder.

"What did you do to her?" he demanded sullenly.

"I turned off the extra pair of RNA that make her a mutant."

He merely grunted in response, because he didn't want to admit he had no idea what she was talking about. The feisty little doctor refused to be dissuaded from her explanation, because she was talking again a moment later when all he wanted for her to do was shut up and let him wallow in his own misery.

"All DNA is made up of RNA. Normally, there are four different chemicals that make up this RNA, but in mutants, there are six. I haven't finished my research into the why and how of it, though."

"Thanks for the biology lesson, Doc, but what the Hell does that have to do with Rogue? How'd you turn it off?"

"One of my mutations is the ability to manipulate organic matter on a cellular level. I merely manipulated that extra pair of RNA into shutting down so that technically, she's not a mutant right now. I can turn them back on when Charles has dealt with the problem."

Yeah, the problem of his kid being fucking psychotic! He should have protected her, damnit! Even better, he never should have allowed her to become one of the X-Men in the first place, never should have allowed her to put herself in danger. Buggering, fucking, shit, being a dad was hard fucking work, harder than he had ever imagined it would be, but not for even a second would he trade Rogue to go back to his former detachment. She was his and that was all there was to it.

"What are you doing, Charles?" Jeanie asked after giving Scott an exam to make sure none of his neck bones were broken.

"I'm trying to find Adam Bancroft and remove him from her mind before she learns how to reactivate her mutation," Charlie responded.

"That's not possible, Charles. If she's no longer a mutant, then there's no way for her to reactive them, and she's never touched Leigha to absorb her ability to manipulate cells," Jeanie said.

Logan didn't like the look Charlie gave to Jeanie then. It was like he was looking at someone else, and frankly, it freaked him out a little. Neither did he like the look in Jeanie's eyes. They suddenly seemed to flash orange and red before reverting to their natural color which meant there was more what-the-fuckery at work. Shit, he'd been hanging around with kids way too long if he was using terms like "what-the-fuckery." He only had the mental focus and energy to worry about one person at a time, however, and Rogue was getting all of his focus until she woke up and told them all she was fine again.

***

John liked his doorway very much, thank you. The doorway meant safety. It meant the possibility of escape. It represented access to the outside world if his chicken-shit legs got the better of him after seeing Rogue in such a fury. All he could do for long moments was stand there and grip the door frame while trying to get his wayward and utterly useless emotions and flight instinct under control. She was just Rogue, after all, but she was every bit as beautiful as he remembered even in the midst of such a feral madness. Hell, she was more beautiful than he remembered, but what frightened him more than anything else had managed to frighten him in a long time were the protective instincts that came rushing back. He wanted to leap into her mind and destroy all the fuckers who were hurting her so badly.

Move your ass, John, he said to himself, you didn't sign a fucking waver giving away your badassery the minute you set foot inside Xavier's mansion. Rogue was in trouble, and if there was ever one person he wanted to get out of trouble, it was her. The choice to move forward or retreat was taken from him when Bobby came up behind him, leaving him the only option of moving into the infirmary. He was already getting several stares from those gathered inside, but Xavier's attention was thankfully focused too much on Rogue to go picking through his mind. There were no secrets when that nosy prick was involved, not with his telepathy and his goody-two-shoes mode stuck in permanent overdrive.

"There is no need to lurk in doorways, Mr. Allerdyce," Xavier intoned. "You are here to see Rogue."

"I can see her from where I am," he muttered. Right, like that was the most badass thing he could think to say at the moment. He really did need to start beating himself in the head to get rid of his idiocy on occasions like these.

"I should put you over my knee for taking off the way you did, John, but I'll forego that if you'll give me a hug," Jean said.

Oh God, more hugs. He didn't want hugs! Again, he wasn't given an option when Jean hurried over and wrapped him up in her arms, a familiar feeling since she had decided to take him on as a surrogate son or something similar after finding him in Australia. He was not--he would like to emphasize the word not--snuggling against her when he relented and slung his arms around her. Someone had just attached magnets to his hands and her back. Yeah, right.

A snarky comment was poised on his lips, but the only thing that came out was, "Who did Rogue touch that she was able to hurl Wolverine across the room?"

"No one. About a year after you left, she developed strength and flight mutations that presented during a mission to rescue Kitty, who had been kidnapped by an anti-mutant hate group."

"What I wanna know is how she was able to use Bobby's mutation when she ain't touched him in years," Wolverine commented from Rogue's bedside. "She ain't supposed to hold onto mutations for very long."

That brought an end to the Jean hug, something for which John was acutely relieved, because he was not getting comfortable here again. As soon as Rogue was better, his ass was history. He would go hole up at the office Magneto had sequestered him to and write his damn articles like he'd been ordered to do, and Magneto didn't ever need to know about his temporary jaunt back into Good Samaritan-Ville.

"Genetic photographic memory," a little redhead said.

"Use little words if you want them to understand," John cut in at the questioning look on several faces. Of course, that comment got him a rather nasty look from Log….Wolverine.

"Check your snark at the door, Kid, before I get the idea to toss you back through it the way you came."

"Have you heard of the phenomenon of eidetic memory? It's the brain's ability in rare individuals to reproduce vivid, picture-like images of things they may have seen only once decades in the past. The image imprints on the memory of these individuals and remains there," the redhead in the lab coat explained.

"Yeah, so what does that got to do with my kid, Doc? These aren't images she's reproducing. They're fucking mutations."

"Genetic photographic memory means these individual mutations Rogue is picking up when she touches people become imprinted in her genetic information. She's able to reproduce the mutations on an instinctive level during times of emotional stress or in situations that activate her self-preservation instincts like with flash bulb memory. She hasn't learned to consciously access them, but with her mind under such stress, it's happening instinctively."

John's expression flattened in a refusal to show he was impressed with the little redhead. What was happening should have been obvious to the others as far as he was concerned, but they collectively shared a brain in Xavier's ass crack. He was probably lucky Xavier's mind was busy with Rogue at the moment, or that thought might have gotten a little more than a nasty look.

"So how do we combat it?" Jean asked.

"You can't," John cut in. "Attacking her only worsens her self-preservation instinct. Attempting to restrain her will only do the same. The only thing you can do is immediately knock her out before she gets in that state."

"It ain't gonna matter when Charlie gets done with whatever he's doing, right?" Logan asked, more than a little uncertainty in his voice.

"I've found all of Adam Bancroft's memories she absorbed and have removed them. Now, all I must do is erase her memories of the event entirely. When she wakes up, she will have no memory of going to the asylum. I suggest no one speak of her involvement in that mission."

"John," Bobby began when there was a moment of tense silence, "if you want, I'll take you up to one of the guest rooms while we're waiting."

His glance went to Rogue once again, to the elegant sweep of her jaw. At least she seemed to be in peace while she was in a drug-induced coma, because the lines of her face had eased, but he could still hear her voice pleading with Xavier not to make her dad give the killing blow when it became necessary. Not if but when. She fully believed she would have to die, and that caused a tightening of his chest and gut that he despised immediately for the weakness it caused in him. The thought of Rogue's death ranked right up there on the list of the worst things that could ever possibly happen to him. His jaw tightened, and his eyes squeezed closed when he realized he would even sign over his damned brain to Xavier if it meant Rogue would pull through.

"You still love her," Bobby commented.

"Shut up," he snapped, but the usual heat wasn't there.

"That's part of the reason you left, isn't it. You were pissed at me for asking her out when you liked her too. We had that pact between us not to ask out a girl we both liked, but I broke it."

"I said shut up."

"I'm trying to tell you I'm sorry, damnit! Sorry doesn't make up for me being such an ass, and to tell you the truth, I don't know why I chose her over our friendship. I guess I convinced myself you didn't really like her as much as you did and that you would forgive me. Maybe one day you'll forgive me. Maybe you won't, but don't take it out on Rogue. She didn't know."

"Goddamnit, what is it with you people and your touchy feely bullshit?" he suddenly exploded before yanking his duffle bag over his shoulder and hurrying down the hallway to get away from it and them. Didn't they understand he didn't know how to deal with them on an intimate, family-oriented level? Didn't they know he was above all that emotional bullshit?

Apparently not, because Bobby's long ass legs caught up to him in a matter of strides at which point Bobby said, "What do you want me to say? We were practically brothers at one point, but you can't even talk to me. Fine, don't talk to me. Be a dick instead. Besides, we need to focus on getting Rogue through the fallout."

Bobby was met with silence as John searched for something snarky to say. He didn't even know why he was here. Xavier apparently had the situation under control despite John's earlier reservations. Rogue didn't need him, not when she had people like Logan--Wolverine, damnit!--there to take care of her and give her all the emotional support she needed. There was nothing he could offer her, so she was better off without him there, better off without being reminded that he'd taken off without so much as a "kiss my ass." He should just leave before she even woke up and get it over with. Then why were his legs carrying him up the stairs toward the guest quarters? Because he was a bloody, fucking chicken shit.

"We've all failed Rogue," Bobby insisted on saying on the way down the hall. "We treated her like she was a badass, like nothing could phase her, so instead of gathering together to help her, we just figured she would be all right. If we'd realized she's not some uber-strong wall of mental soundness, maybe we could have prevented this from happening."

He skidded to a halt when he realized Bobby wasn't just flapping his jaws to hear himself talk. The man was looking for some sort of reassurance. Trouble was John didn't know if he had it in him to reassure Bobby, didn't know if he even wanted to, but it was just too damned easy to fall back into the old pre-Magneto ways.

"Rogue never liked to let anyone in," he finally said. "She never liked to show just how much she was affected by her mutation, so there really wasn't much you could do. Just calm your ass down and stop wallowing in your own misery and sense of failure."

"So the prodigal son returns," Kitty said, suddenly in the hallway in front of them, looking pale and terribly worried.

"Son of a bitch, I hate that fucking phrase."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The first thing Rogue noticed when she returned to consciousness was that her mouth was drier than the proverbial desert. Seriously, it felt like she hadn't had anything to drink in a week. Secondly, she realized how groggy she felt, both surefire signs she had been put under anesthesia or into a drug-induced coma. The time she had been put under to have her appendix removed a couple of years ago felt just like this when she'd come out o fit. There was only one difference; her dad wasn't around this time. She knew it deep down in every fiber of her being, and that knowledge had tears stinging her eyes. Whatever she had done must truly have been terrible, terrible enough that he might be regretting adopting her, terrible enough that he might even be thinking about leaving her. After all, her bio-parents had pretty much left her. Why shouldn't he?

Her lower lip trembling, she finally cracked her eyes open to stare up at the ceiling, but she choked back the tears while trying to piece together what had happened. She'd been terribly angry lately for some reason but couldn't figure out why. No memories jumped to the forefront to explain why she would attack Ororo. Yeah, she definitely remembered that. Ororo had disturbed her, interrupted her while she was having a private moment, and the rage had just bubbled over into the realm of the uncontrollable. A little sound of distress escaped her when she couldn't find memories to fill in all the gaps of time she seemed to be missing.

"Rogue, are you awake?"

Rogue turned her glance to her bedside where she found John sitting. The guy looked like Hell with his hair dyed a rather unflattering shade of blonde and dark circles under his eyes like he hadn't been getting enough sleep. Other than that, he actually looked less like Hell than she had first thought. He'd gotten taller, had filled out across the shoulders and chest, and looked less pale. In short, he looked healthier than he had when he'd left the mansion all those years ago. A can of Red Bull was clutched in one of his hands. Empty candy wrappers littered the floor around his chair. Oh man, Kitty was going to be so mad if he'd gotten into her secret candy stash.

"What are you doing here?" she finally croaked past a voice gone hoarse.

"Bobby called and said you were in trouble. Figured it couldn't hurt to come see for myself just how bad it was."

One of her chocolate brows arched in disbelief when he retrieved a bottle of water, thrust a straw into it, and held it in front of her mouth so she could drink. That was…considerate. She latched to the straw but wasn't content until she'd slurped down the entire bottle. Not even that truly satisfied her thirst.

"You look pretty good," she said when she'd finished drinking.

"Damn, the blonde hair is supposed to make me look like shit. How are you feeling?" He averted his gaze rather than looking at her as though he were uncomfortable in her presence.

That irritated her for some reason, though it probably shouldn't have. He'd left without even saying goodbye, so that right there said he didn't give a damn about her or any of them. Instead of responding, she tested her limbs to see just how sore she was only to realize she couldn't lift her arms, because they were weighted down by adamantium chains. That was wrong… Adamantium could restrain her, but she should have been able to at least lift her arms despite the weight.

"Okay, ignore me. I can't say that I blame you. Log… Wolverine will be back soon. He just went to get cleaned up, because he was really starting to stink the place up. He hasn't left your side for a week."

"I've been out for an entire week?" Losing so much time was dismaying, but she was relieved to hear Logan was just off showering instead of planning on leaving her and going back into the wilds of Canada where she would never find him to tell him how very sorry she was for putting him through this.

"Yeah, but you'll have to ask Xavier about that. Do you remember anything?"

She made a little sound of dismay and followed it up with a sense of disgust at the awkwardness making the infirmary uncomfortable. There'd been a time when she'd considered John one of her best friends. They had been able to talk to each other about things they didn't want to share with anyone else, because in ways they were a lot alike. He had shitty parents. She had shitty parents. They had both been forced to leave home because of their mutations, and they both felt their mutations were dangerous.

Finally, she responded, "I remember bits and pieces since the night Kitty and me went to the mall. I remember talking to Charles in his office about the rage and violent tendencies building inside me. Then I remember Dad--Logan officially adopted me--coming to my room that night to take me to sleep with him in his room. After that, it gets a bit fuzzy. I was talking to Brogan when Ororo showed up and threatened to kick him out of the mansion, and that's when I got so pissed of I couldn't control it."

"Who's Brogan?" John asked mildly.

"He's my boyfriend, but he's not here right now."

"He left you here to deal with this shit by yourself? Doesn't sound like much of a boyfriend to me if he's not willing to stay here with you."

"Shut up!" she shouted. "How dare you accuse him of not being much of a boyfriend when you abandoned all of us in favor of becoming the sidekick of the man who tried to kill me!"

"Whoa, calm down. There's no need for you to get so worked up. Obviously the guy must be a saint if he's going out with you, because you have excellent taste in men." She wasn't sure, but she thought she detected a note of sarcasm.

Wary now, Rogue tried to shift on the examination table only for movement to be bogged down by the chains. Those were starting to get really annoying. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. So what's he like? Is he a mutant?"

"He loves me despite my mutation that prevents us from getting closer or being intimate." A wistful smile curved her lips. "Brogan's a journalist in the city where he works for a prestigious publication, but he really wants to write a collection of memoirs about mutant struggles to let the public know the things we've been through."

That got a strange look from John, who said, "The guy must really be a saint. So where did you meet him?"

"He just showed up one day when I was at NYU taking one of my exams. Yale is a part of the program Charles and the others pioneered to allow mutants to take online courses, but the tests have to be administered at NYU. Anyhow, I bumped into him at the campus cafeteria, and we just hit it off."

"Interesting. Does Logan know about him?"

"God no! Brogan insists my overprotective dad wouldn't approve of him even though I've tried to reassure him that my dad would want me to be happy. He's afraid no one here will approve of him. God, has he got self-esteem issues. He likes to act like he's all bad ass, but deep down, he's afraid that people are going to walk out on him. Brogan would never walk out on me the way you did."

"I had to go," John whispered. There was something pained about his expression that Rogue couldn't quite put her finger on.

"Why?"

"You wouldn't understand."

Something in her chest clenched when she realized his expression was one of isolation and misery, emotions he probably wouldn't show anyone else in the world. Everything inside her wanted to comfort him, to somehow make it all go away and give him a sense of normalcy he would probably never allow himself to have on his own. She wanted to reach out to him, to smooth away the lines etched finely on his face like smoothing out a crack in wet clay, but the damned chains were in her way again. Those fucking chains!

Damnit, she had thought she was over Saint John Allerdyce, through with caring about him, finished with wondering whether or not he was all right or if anyone was taking care of him and making sure he slept and ate as he so often forgot to do. Falling back into the emotionally detrimental realm of feeling for him was far easier than she thought it would be. All she wanted to do was hug him and tell him she would forgive him anything if he would just stop looking so miserable. Those motherfucking, cocksucking chains!

"Make me understand, because I really want to know why you would turn your back on our friendship for Magnojerk. He tried to kill me. How could you ever go with him knowing that?"

John refused to look at her and feigned interest in the floor while fiddling with the cuff of his shirt. He looked as though he were fighting an internal battle, deciding whether or not to tell her the truth or make up another lie. That was his favorite defense technique. Being blasé was far easier than revealing the truth as Rogue so well knew. What better way to convince everyone you were all right than to pretend like everything was all right or to act shallow, like nothing ever mattered?

"Talk to me, John," she said. "You're good at talking at me, but how long has it been since you've actually talked to me?"

"I left for a lot of reasons," he finally began. "My mutation was getting more and more unstable. Xavier didn't know what to do with me or how to help me. I kept getting more pissed off at humans for wanting to destroy us all just because we're more powerful than they are, and Magneto understood that. He understood what I needed to gain more control over my mutation, and…" John paused and chewed on the inside of his lip for a moment. "Look, this is probably the most honest I've ever been with anyone in my life, but… I was in love with you." Then he clenched his eyes shut as though he were afraid to see her reaction, afraid of himself for being able to admit that out loud.

Having an nuclear bomb dropped on her head probably would have been less shocking. Rogue opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again while searching for something to say as though she were a fish out of water. John had loved her? He'd endured watching Bobby and her being all lovey-dovey together all the while knowing he didn't stand a chance of being with her after that?

A sickening sensation twisted her innards when she thought of it, because how many times had she been in the same situation? How often had she watched Bobby and Kitty sucking face in a dark corner when they thought no one was watching and felt the terrible weight of knowing that would never be hers? There had been crushes after Bobby, of course, but she had always remained silent, always knowing a real relationship was impossible for her because of her mutation. If John had felt anything like she felt when that happened, it was enough to make her want to bawl on his behalf.

"Well, fine, you don't have to freaking say anything," John hissed. "If it's that shocking, just tell me to get the fuck out. I shouldn't fucking be here to begin with, so just forget I said anything."

"I didn't know. Why didn't you ever tell me? God, John, you're such an ass sometimes! I wanted you to ask me out instead of Bobby back then, but you always acted like we were just friends. You treated me like I was just someone to goof off with and share stories with."

"Bullshit! You sat there making googly eyes at Bobby when he introduced himself the first day you started classes."

"Yeah, I was fucking shocked that he was willing to talk to me knowing what my mutation was! Back then, I didn't think anyone would ever accept me because of how dangerous I am."

"I didn't know how to talk to you," he said. "I'd fucking know what I wanted to say. Then you would smile at me, and the only thing I could think was 'guh, this gorgeous girl is smiling at me, and she has the greatest smile in the entire fucking world.' And yeah, your mutation might be dangerous, but that never mattered to me. Hell, so is mine."

"So you just decided not to say anything at all. You decided not to even try. That's real courageous there, Bub. I've never met a guy who tries harder to act like a badass but can't back up his shit by taking the plunge and saying, 'I like you.'"

That seemed to send John spinning into the realm of the what-the-fuckery, because he sputtered for a moment before finally blurting out, "I did try! It just ended up coming out 'do you wanna go moon the drive-thru guy at Dairy Queen' instead, and you've been spending too much time with Logan if you're referring to people as bub. And who the Hell are you talk to me about not being able to back up your badassery shit?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, because unlike some people I know, I can back it up, and Logan and me spend so much time together because he formally adopted me. I am officially Rogue Howlet."

"There's a match made in Hell," he muttered under his breath.

"Don't you dare talk about my dad and me like that, John Allerdyce, or I'll make like you're a Danger Room robot and break your skull!"

He held up his hands in the universal sign of surrender and sat silently for a few minutes before saying, "So you used to like me too. I don't suppose you still do."

"After you ran out the way you did to share an ass with Magnojerk? Liking you hurts too much, John. I just got over wondering about how you were doing. Now you show back up and expect me to endure that again when you leave?"

"And there's Brogan to think about. I don't suppose he would like it very much if you started cheating on him."

Rogue frowned. Yes, there was Brogan to consider, but he had been awfully quiet since she'd come out of the coma. Why wasn't he showing any kind of jealousy at having John declaring his previous love for her? If he loved her so much, wanted so intensely to protect her, why wasn't he shouting his head off and demanding that she make John go away before John took Brogan away?

"Is something wrong? Do I need to get Jean and Xavier?"

"Nothing's wrong. I just realized I haven't heard from Brogan since they put me in a coma, and he's usually always getting in contact with me."

"Maybe that's a good thing for me if you want to take me up on that offer to go moon the drive-thru guy at Dairy Queen." He actually smiled, and it had been a long time since she had seen him smile.

This was the John she was more familiar with. When she'd first arrived at the mansion, there had been more smiles from him, more openness, and more of a sense of being…human. No, human wasn't the right word. He'd been less isolated and aloof from the rest of the world. Magnojerk might have shown him how to take control of his mutation, but the gigantic Barney-wannabe had made John into a machine. She didn't like that at all and was once again irritated by the chains dragging her arms down.

"Or you can sit there looking irritated that I even bothered bringing it up again," John said when she didn't immediately respond and glanced away from her again.

"I'm irritated with these damned chains, not you. Mooning the guy at the drive-thru is out of the question when the sight of my ass would give him an aneurysm and make him cum in his pants, but we could actually go in the restaurant and get something to eat together."

"The sight of your ass would make a monk break his vow of chastity." John suddenly blushed, actually blushed as though he couldn't believe he'd just said that. "Sorry, you probably get that all the time."

"But rarely without the guy then trying to grab my ass."

Why she had so readily agreed was a mystery. Why she so quickly forgot Brogan was just as much of a mystery. Hell, she couldn't even say why she would so readily forgive John for everything he'd put Bobby and her through, but the desire to forgive him was there and so strong she couldn't ignore it.

***

"If you're out here, who the fuck is sitting with my kid?" Logan growled when he rounded the bend to find John standing out in the hall. "The way you took off with Magneto, I'd just as soon toss you out on your ass, but Charlie says you might be able to do some good here. You just watch yourself. You even look at my kid wrong, and I turn your spine into a fucking pretzel." Logan didn't like that John appeared nonchalant in the face of his threat. The kid even went so far as to shrug his shoulders. Pissy ass little bitch needed to learn his lesson for being a turncoat as far as Logan was concerned.

"Kitty's visiting with her right now, so don't shit yourself. She woke up finally, and we had a little a chat."

"And?"

"And you're not going to like it."

"I didn't ask if I was going to like it, now tell me what the fuck she said before I beat it out of you."

"None of Bancroft's personalities came out, she seems lucid, she can hold an intelligent conversation, and the chains are starting to piss her off, but she's talking about a guy named Brogan. I don't suppose there really is a Brogan and I'm just being a paranoid prick."

Logan's brow furrowed as he tried to place the name with any of those Rogue had gossiped about in the past, but there was no face to go with that name. That had the color draining from his face. "If he's not one of Bancroft's personalities, then…"

"It's possible she's developed a genuine case of MPD and schizophrenia," John interrupted.

"I thought MPD patients didn't realize there were other personalities inside their head." His lip curled up when he realized that was more intelligent a perception than he was supposed to have. If people knew he was smart, they would expect more out of him, expectations he might ultimately fail to meet.

"In rare cases, the patient is aware of the protector personality, or this is just a plain old case of schizophrenia and he's the voice in the patient's head."

"Stop talkin' about her like she's some fucking nut job at Bellevue. Fucking Bellevue," he cursed. "This wouldn't be happening to her if I'd never let her go there. Shoulda fucking known better than to let my kid anywhere near psychotics."

"Knowing that she absorbs personalities and memories, you really should have."

That garnered John a look that said he was treading on thin ice. "You're one to criticize for takin' care of the people who depend on you, Kid, when you turned traitor by cavortin' with that fucking prick who tried to kill my kid!"

"I'm not explaining that again," John drawled evenly. "Maybe I should have made a school-wide announcement. Saint John Allerdyce, also known as Pyro, also known as That Traitor, became a turncoat because he's a heartless bastard. Approach with extreme caution. Is known to roast people like marshmallows."

Other people probably wouldn't have recognized what John was doing, but Logan was the one person who knew the signs of a defense mechanism when he saw it. Why? Because he had so damn many of them himself. Allerdyce obviously didn't want to get into the how and why of his leaving, so he was acting the way everyone expected him to act. Which begged the question: what was the kid hiding?

Logan pushed the thoughts away by reminding himself Rogue was the only one he was going to worry about right now. He might have gotten close to a lot of the kids in the time he'd been at the mansion, might care about them in his own way, but there was no time or energy left for figuring John out, not that he wanted to anyway. Much.

"So we gotta bring out Brogan and convince him he's not needed to protect her anymore," he finally said.

"No, we have to draw him to the surface and convince him that he is, in reality, me, and since we both can't exist in the same time and space, that should get rid of him."

"You? What the fuck makes you think Rogue would pick you as her protector?" Logan thundered. The very idea of his kid being in any way intimately affectionate toward John of all people was enough to have a temper tantrum looming close to the boiling point.

"Because I'm such a heartless shit," John muttered under his breath. "How the Hell should I know? She claims he's a journalist from New York City who ran into her at NYU while she was taking one of her tests. I'm a journalist in New York City, and I saw her at NYU while I was there researching an article."

Logan's hands pumped into fists repeatedly while trying to get control of his temper when pummeling John wouldn't help the situation one bit. Despite everything, that traitor did seem to sort of know what he was doing even though everything Charlie and the others had done had ultimately failed.

"How do we get him to come out?" he asked.

"I'll have to back her into a mental corner, convince him that she needs to be protected from something. That should bring him to the surface."

Telling John he could keep his nose out of it and leave pissing Rogue off to him was on the tip of Logan's tongue when his chest tightened. How would he ever be able to hurt his kid enough to make her think she needed to be protected? He simply couldn't do it. The surprising thing here was that John hadn't asked him to. "I'll have to back her into a mental corner," John had said. Not "one of us." Not "you," but "I'll have to do it." Somehow John had known he wouldn't be able to emotionally hurt his kid and had stepped up to take responsibility for it.

Logan finally nodded and said, "Do it."

* * *

A/N: Not a lot happening in this chapter in terms of action, but the action will return shortly with a vengeance. Thanks to those who have read, reviewed, and added this story to their alerts and favorites.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: I want to thank everyone who left a review and commented on Brogan. I appreciate the feedback. Also, I want to note that the appearance of Phoenix in this story is more along the lines of the cosmic entity that's portrayed in the comics than the movie version of an alternate personality.

* * *

Chapter 7

John knew his morality was questionable at best, existed in an area of gray outside the normal ethics of society, and therefore he chose to do things mainstream society would label him a villain for. None of those actions had ever bothered him, but the idea of hurting Rogue even to help her made him want to puke his guts up. His stomach churned, but really, he was the only one who could do it, the only one who wouldn't turn chicken. Everyone loved Rogue. She might be moody, but she was also charismatic and knew how to speak to people with her southern charm in a way everyone was naturally drawn to. So John was going to have to man up and take care of the problem as usual.

Damn spineless X-Freaks. Their cowardice would cost him his one chance at being with Rogue the way he wanted to be, because she would never forgive him for the hurtful things he would have to say. Still, he would rather have her mentally sound and happy without him than locked up in a padded cell with him. Forcing his legs not to turn X-Freak on him, he returned to the infirmary after Kitty left and dragged a stool over to sit next to her.

"You just couldn't stay away, could you," she said with what John thought was the softest smile he had ever seen her use before.

His insides quivered and had him second-guessing the approach he thought would work best. He hadn't studied psychology, but what he knew of multiple personality disorder was that if the protector was modeled off a living person, it was sometimes possible to make the protector disappear by convincing it that it couldn't exist in the same reality as the living person. So first thing he had to do was bring out Brogan. The only way to do that was to hurt Rogue.

Steeling his will, he shrugged and said, "I'm interested in learning more about Brogan."

"What do you want to know about him?"

"What is he getting out of his relationship with you? He has to be getting something from you since he's obviously not getting sex, and we all know it would take a Hell of a lot for a man to go without sex for any length of time."

"So you think he's one of those shallow guys who's just using me as a trophy girlfriend because we can't have sex. He's not that type of guy."

"Come on, Rogue, we both know what men are like. He's using you, and I want to know what he's using you for."

"Why does he have to be using me? Why can't he just love me because of who I am? Not all guys are shallow bastards."

"Bobby apparently was," John said. "Once he figured out how moody you are, how easily you fly off the handle, he dropped you like a hot rock because he wasn't able to get sex out of you. Guys can put up with an emotional girl if she's good in bed, but if she's not good in bed, we tend to run from the relationship."

Her brow furrowed as though she was terribly confused. "Yeah, well, Bobby's an asshole, and you're acting like one too to even be insinuating that I'm not worth giving up sex for."

"I'm not insinuating anything, Mate. I'm telling you the truth about guys. No woman is worth giving up sex for unless she's got something major to offer, and you don't, not when people abandon you as quickly as Marilyn Manson can clear out a church by stepping inside."

"What the fuck, John? A half hour ago, you were proclaiming your undying love for me, and now you're acting like a steroid-pumped prick!"

"When you're so screwed in the head you ended up chained to an operating table? Sorry, Mate, but you aren't worth that much effort. So what's Brogan getting out of this relationship?"

"Nothing! He loves me for who I am."

"Not a chance. Everyone abandons you at some point or another. Hell, even Logan can't stand being around you for longer than a few months at a time. That's why he goes away to Canada so often. Come on, you can admit it to me. You must give the best blow job in the world if he hasn't split already."

John felt the sudden and detested urge to cry at the absolutely heartbroken expression on Rogue's face, an expression that went completely blank a moment later. Maybe Bellevue rented rooms by the hour, because he was going to have a fucking nervous breakdown after this was over, that or he might just go to Hell and let Satan shove pineapples up his ass for the rest of eternity.

When she didn't say anything, he pushed harder. "Come on, Brogan. Come tell me how good her blow jobs are! You can tell me how much it sucks getting a blow job with a condom in the way."

This was where Brogan was supposed to make an appearance and save him from committing verbal suicide, but John was suddenly scrambling to get out of the way when the chains holding her down to the table suddenly broke half way down their length. No, they didn't break as though she had exerted enough force to do it. One of the links simply slipped off, and Rogue shoot to her feet on top of the table with a snarl of rage. She then used the length of the chain dangling from her wrists as a whip that lashed toward his head and had John rolling off his stool and under the table to get out of the way.

What the fuck?! He managed not to scream his shock and surprise, because Rogue wasn't supposed to be a mutant right now! The doctor had shut down her mutant RNA to prevent her from using any kind of mutation, but nothing else could make those chains give way. Rolling out from under the table on the opposite side, he ran for the intercom to alert someone they had a rogue Rogue on the loose, who was probably going to take her fury out on any man in the building.

He didn't make it. One of the chains whipped around his calf and yanked him from his feet where he hit the floor with a resounding thud. He had just enough time to roll to the side and avoid the fist slamming toward his face. Fighting instinct told him to hit her with a stream of fire, but hurting her would gut him like nothing else could gut him, so he shot to his feet again and scrambled to get out of the infirmary to avoid the worst of her fury. A sudden pressure in his head stopped him dead in his tracks. Having his head clamped in a vice would hurt less than whatever she was doing to him, something she'd inherited from Cha…Xavier or Jean he was certain.

"Brogan," he gasped out, "you have to stop. It'll hurt Rogue worse than you can imagine if you make her kill one of us."

"I promise it won't effect her that much if I kill you," she said, her voice pitched lower than normal and laced with deadly calm.

"You can't exist in Rogue's head, because you're me! We're the same person, so if I'm standing out here, you can't be in there."

"You deserve to have your spine ripped out and used as a toothpick for hurtin' my kid!" she cried.

Okay, that sounded too much like Logan for John's peace of mind, and if she didn't stop squeezing his brain soon, he was going to be have mashed Pyro brains leaking out his ears. Fire wasn't going to do him any good anyway! He was immune to fire, and since she'd absorbed him when he'd roasted those cops in Boston, she would be immune as well. Groaning, he let his legs go out from under him to feign death in the off chance she would then release him.

The pressure was instantly lifted from his head, but she yanked him off the floor by gripping his upper arms, slamming him into a nearby wall with such force he couldn't breathe for several long seconds. John was incapable of experiencing real fear, not even when an ice spike appeared in her hand, because if he was going to die, he would certainly deserve it.

"I treated you like a brother, John! When everyone else was wary of you and talked about you behind your back, I defended you, told them you were a cool guy who didn't deserve their bullshit. How did you pay me back? By leaving and putting me through five years of knowing I did something to drive you away."

"Bobby, give control back to Rogue. Don't do something rash just because you're pissed at me, not when you're only going to hurt Rogue in the process," he choked out past the hand she was using to grip him by the throat.

John wasn't sure whether or not to be relieved when the door of the infirmary suddenly came crashing in to admit Colossus, who stood the only chance of restraining her, Logan, and several others. All it did was temporarily divert his attention from the ice spear that was suddenly shoved so deeply through the muscle along the top of his shoulder the tip broke off when it rammed into the wall behind him. He almost swallowed his tongue to avoid screaming in pain. A Perfect Circle's "Passive" pounded through his head, because Bobby was his perfect enemy. Ice against fire, and he felt it coursing through him, a bone-deep cold threatening to turn his bowels into a traitor.

All he could do was gasp and crumple when Rogue was suddenly yanked away from him. Vaguely, he could hear Jean, her voice far calmer than he thought it should have been, saying something to Rogue, could hear a bolt of lightning arching through the air, but he ignored everything while getting his lighter out to start melting the ice spear. He didn't have to go to that effort, though, when Bobby was suddenly there, suddenly retracting the spear from his shoulder and clamping a wad of cloth over the entrance and exit holes to begin stemming the flow of blood.

"Doc, we've got a man down over here!" Bobby shouted.

"You tried to kill me, you prick," he muttered a second before lapsing into unconsciousness.

***

Kitty didn't know whether to piss herself or shit herself when she dashed through the infirmary walls when she'd heard people shouting that Rogue had gone bonkers in the infirmary and was attacking John. The situation might call for both, because as soon as she was corporeal again, she looked up to see Rogue and Jean staring at each other. Jean's eyes were flashing a strange fire. Rogue was breaking out in a heavy sweat. Piotr had Rogue's hands yanked up behind her back, and Logan looked as though he was going to cry at any second. Then there was Bobby and the doctor with a bleeding John in the corner. Yeah, pissing and shitting herself sounded like a good option at the moment. Worse still was that there was nothing she could do to intervene or be of use. She might as well shove a traffic cone up her backside and turn herself into a merry-go-round for all the good she could do in situations like this.

She yelped when Rogue broke free of Piotr's grip and dashed toward Logan only to be brought up short by whatever Jean was doing with her mind. That provoked an instant response from Rogue, who let loose a lightning bolt that arched through the air and was intercepted and diffused by Jean. What the fuck and requiem of what the fuck, people?! Since when could Jean nullify one of Ororo's bolts of lightning?

"She's trying to go to her dad. Stop attacking her and let her go to him, Professor Grey!" Kitty cried when she saw the desperate look in Rogue's face.

Jean obviously didn't feel like paying attention to someone as small as Kitty, because instead of releasing Rogue, the professor said, "You have taken something from me no mortal should ever possess, Rogue. Do what is in the best interest of your shell and heal its mind."

"Get outta my head!" Rogue screeched in a voice that sounded rather like nails on a chalkboard.

Kitty wasn't sure what happened, but apparently Rogue reacted to Jean trying to root around in her mind, because Jean slid across the floor several feet before being able to mentally bring herself to a halt. She was so going on a long vacation after Rogue was better again, because this shit was enough to freak the fuck right out of her.

"I cannot until you are mentally sound. Stop fighting me and it will be over in a matter of moments."

"No," Rogue growled. "Ain't nobody messin' with my head again!" Well fuck if that didn't sound like Logan.

"I'm only doing what is best for you, but you must stop fighting and let me erase them from your mind. You will be alone in your own head again. I cannot do that unless you stop fighting me with that which you took, not from Jean, but from me."

Not from Jean but from me? Someone needed to write the For Dummies version of this so Kitty wasn't existing in a realm of utter confusion. "Professor Grey, just let her go to Logan. He'll be able to make her calm down, because she would never hurt him no matter how weird her head is right now."

She was ignored again when Rogue whispered, "I can't stop fighting. My body, my head, they won't let me. I'm tryin', Phoenix, but they're all screamin' at once. They won't shut up long enough for me to let you help me."

"Gimme my kid, Jean," Logan cut in.

"Be quiet, Logan, because there is nothing any of you can do to help her right now. Getting past the power she absorbed from me, the power that imprinted on her, is the only chance she has."

A moment of panic shot through Kitty when Rogue's glance went to a bone saw hanging on rack with other surgical supplies. Surely she wouldn't… Kitty didn't know what terrified her more; Rogue using the bone saw on Jean or using it on herself.

"Don't do it, Rogue," she pleaded.

Haunted eyes turned to Kitty. "I just want it to be over. I hurt John. I hurt Ororo. I'm hurting all of you, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. Just let it be over."

"What the Hell are you talkin' like that for, Kid? You ain't hurtin' yourself. Jean's gonna fix you if you can just calm down long enough for the doc to put you under again. Remember the last time she did it? She can take your ability to use mutations away, and that'll give Jean the time she needs. Right, Jeanie?"

"There are too many in my head, Dad. This is the only way."

"Crash the operating system and allow it to reboot," Jean said evenly.

"What are you saying? She's not going to kill herself!" Kitty cried. "There has to be something else we can do, something other than that!"

Her raised voice finally got Jean's attention, who turned those strange eyes on her. "You are afraid for her, but what you do not understand is that if you take her mutations from her as Logan suggests, the power she absorbed from me will simply turn them back on. There is no way to incapacitate her for any longer than her body allows. This is the only way."

"You're talking about fucking killin' my kid! Absolutely not. I forbid it. She ain't dying because I fucked up in that asylum, Jeanie."

"I'll come back," Rogue said. "Jean isn't Jean right now. A long time ago, a powerful entity called Phoenix came to inhabit Jean's body. She's been dormant all these years, but she's awake now and will be able to bring me back. You have to trust her, because this is the only way I'm ever going to have a normal life."

The floor tried to rise up to smack Kitty in the face, but she was able to keep from giving in to the dizziness. "An entity? What the Hell kind of entity? How do we know we can trust this entity to bring you back?"

"Because she could have broken free of Charles' mental blocks a long time ago, but she didn't. She could have destroyed us all by now, but she hasn't. Because this is the only way."

"You got any idea what it will do to me if you don't come back? That means you'd better fuckin' come back, because if you don't, I'll hunt down Magneto and have him twist me into a fucking pretzel."

"She'll bring me back. I love you, Dad, and I'm not gonna leave you forever, just for a little while. I have to do it now while they're not screamin' at me."

Kitty wanted to whimper and sink through the floor, but she could be brave for Rogue. If Rogue had to go through this, the very least she could do was watch even if the memories of her adopted sister putting a bone saw to her throat would haunt her for the rest of her life.

Jean or Phoenix or whoever the Hell she was must have finally let go, because Rogue ran for the bone saw. Her hand was just curling around the handle when a loud explosion rocked the infirmary as one of the walls was blown inward. Men and women dressed in black uniforms, their faces covered with masks, came pouring inside from a tunnel they'd dug under the ground.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Rogue felt as though she'd been punched in the gut when an electric charge hit her in the back of the shoulder and threatened to buckle her knees out from under her when she was just seconds away from doing the only thing she could to fix herself. The anger at being stopped so close to her goal was enough to drag a snarl from her as she whirled around to face their attackers. They were all covered in black from head to toe. Even their eyes were obscured by dark goggles. A red light throbbed on headbands around their temples, the function of those lights made obvious when she instinctively sought to get inside their heads to pop them like grapes as the power she had absorbed from Phoenix wanted. She came up against a barrier created by the gadgets emitting the pulsing light.

Once Logan's mutation kicked on inside her to heal the damage from the electric shock, she drew herself up to her full height and rocketed across the room toward the lead man who'd come through the hole. She and the man made intimate contact with the wall with enough force to leave a small indentation in it, but she was distracted from snapping his neck by a strange thundering sound that seemed to be coming from outside the mansion. That was the only warning before a massive tornado ripped straight through the roof to settle near where Doctor Leigha was still working on John and sucked Bobby up inside. Breath rushed into her lungs in a hiss.

"Hurting my family is a bad idea," she said to no one in particular when fighting broke out inside the infirmary.

A very bad idea, because every one of the people inside her head started clamoring at once. Every one of those personalities could agree on one thing; protect the family at all costs, at least when they weren't actively trying to restrain her. However, Storm took off through their new sun roof to deal with the other weather mutant hovering in the skies over the mansion.

"Give us la fille called Rogue Howlet and no one else gets hurt. It's a fair trade, non?" one of the men instructed.

"Piss off, Bub!" Logan shouted back.

"Thieves Guild," Phoenix said.

"What the fuck is a Thieves Guild?" her dad demanded.

"Who cares, just kill them!" John said, obviously having just regained consciousness.

Easier said than done when, as Rogue soon discovered, the members of the Thieves Guild were all mutants who seemed to have perfect control of their mutations. Didn't matter, though, because she was still going to piss in their Wheaties for breaking the mansion. Oh eww, she was starting to sound like John, and she wasn't ready to forgive him for all those hurtful things he'd said even though she now understood what he'd been up to.

Abandoning Phoenix's technique, which didn't seem to be working for her at the moment, she formed an ice spear in her hand and hurled it at the man who had spoken, a brow arching when he tossed a glowing playing card at the spear that exploded on impact and sent chips of ice flying harmlessly in the air. She didn't like that man one bit and changed tactics again when she grabbed up the bone saw and rushed him, half-way to her target when she heard the bark of a gun nearby followed by Logan's grunt and the sound of his weight hitting the floor.

Her heart clenched when she whipped around to find him on the floor, a small puddle of blood blooming from the back of his head. They'd shot her dad in the head?! Rogue went cold inside. The bone-numbing cold was instantly followed by such a white hot fury she didn't even think about what she was doing when a ball of fire appeared in her hand, didn't even consider the consequences when she hurled it at the feet of the woman with the smoking gun. When it hit, it engulfed her in flames, but the woman's shrieks did nothing to abate her fury. Not even watching John flick his lighter and hurl a stream of fire into the hole through which more mutants were appearing and hearing the corresponding screams made her feel any better.

"Instinct," she heard John say. "She's using my fire without creating a source of the fire through instinct alone." There was a note in his voice that said he was trying to figure something out.

Rogue lost track of John when Piotr's weight crushed her to the floor, but she didn't know whether he'd been shoved into her or had trapped her beneath his metal frame in order to protect her. Either way, she didn't like it one bit and let him know when Magneto's mutation activated inside her to yank his heavy ass off her. That done, she pushed back to her feet again, her glance raking the room to find the Creole dude.

He was revealed when another playing card floated across the room to explode at Leigha's feet, but the good doctor was saved from becoming a roasty toasty physician by John, who sucked the flames into his own hand and hurled them back at the man. Creole flattened himself to the floor to avoid the flames and rolled to the side, on his feet again a moment later. That prick could move too quickly for her peace of mind, so she sent a sheet of ice across the floor in his direction to take away the traction of his feet against the floor, pleased with herself when he fell.

She flew across the distance separating them, veering to the left at the last moment to drive one of the thieves into John's stream of fire. This time, she wouldn't absorb his mutation from him. This time, she wouldn't have to feel him inside her, the aching loneliness, the crushing weight of guilt he refused to allow himself to feel for what had happened in Australia. The nameless ache he'd buried so deeply she hadn't been able to recognize that he was actually aching because he thought she hadn't approved of him enough to be with him.

Rogue flung herself on top of Creole to keep him down when he made to rise and got his arms pinned behind his back. "John, zip tie! The drawer to your left."

For once, John jumped without asking why or how high, and he was there in an instant. Creole was soon face-down on the floor with his arms bound behind his back, but there was only one way to keep him from charging the zip ties and breaking free. Rogue stripped off a glove, pulled down the back of his jacket, and was just about to touch their skin together when John grabbed her wrist that was still covered by her sweater. She turned a frosty glance on him.

"Not this time, Rogue," he said. "That weather mutant is kicking Storm's ass, and there are more people coming through that hole. We need you lucid and in prime fighting condition."

As if to prove his point, a rumbling shudder heaved through the foundations of the mansion and dislodged some of the wood already damaged from the tornado. She was shocked speechless when John threw himself on top of her and curled his body around hers to protect her, so shocked it took her a full second to remember to cover the back of his head with her hands to offer his head some small measure of protection. The warmth of his body against hers was a shock, because he was warmer than when she hugged her dad. It was a shock, but that wasn't to say it was unpleasant. Right, and this is the perfect time to think of pleasantries, Rogue, she said to herself.

"Ask me to stay, Rogue," he breathed next to her ear. "When all this is over, ask me to stay at the mansion."

"I want you to stay," she whispered in return.

Thought and breath were driven from her lungs when John's warm lips were against hers ever-so-briefly, there and then gone an instant later. Rogue found herself wanting to bawl because of the interruption of the battle and the inability to ever have a full kiss with him because of her mutation. John was Brogan, she suddenly realized, or rather who she hoped John could be if he would stop being so distant. The pressure of remaining herself when there were so many other people in her head who were shouting with righteous indignation over the attack on the mansion suddenly became easier.

When her senses returned enough for her to realize their surroundings again, she noted the foundation was no longer rumbling. It seemed to be with a mutual accord that John and she untangled themselves to rejoin the battle just in time for her to see her dad getting back to his feet and cracking his neck to dart glances around the room until he found her. She flashed him one of her southern smiles, because Rogue felt more like Rogue than she had in a while.

"Rogue!" Logan roared at the top of his considerable lungs, his eyes widening as he lurched into motion to charge toward her.

Too late did Rogue sense someone behind her. Too late did she turn in an effort to defend herself, and too late did John spring into action. A sharp pain stabbed into the back of her neck. Something burned just under her skin as it pumped into her. Whatever drug they had injected her with took effect almost immediately as Rogue slumped to the ground. Though she remained conscious, she was unable to move anything from her neck down, something that would quickly be remedied when Logan's healing activated to begin filtering the drug out of her system. Given enough time, she was quite certain she would have recovered, but she wasn't given that time before she heard someone engage John in combat. That was all the opening the enemy needed. Someone appeared beside her, snatched her off the ground, and handed her off to someone else, who shot into the air and sped off away from the mansion. Just as soon as she began to recover from the drug, the person carrying her injected her with something else.

***

Saint John Allerdyce, more like Saint John Idiot, stared at the wall opposite him in his suite at the Ritz in Downtown New York City. That the mansion had taken so much damage the entire structure was unsafe had been obvious, prompting their need to find a safe haven. Lucky for them Warren Worthington III had purchased the hotel and had turned it into a safe-haven for mutants who had no where else to go. Lucky for them Magneto had somehow known just the right time to show up, as though he had a sixth sense about when the mansion came under attack. Unlucky for John, Magneto wasn't going to let him get away with slipping into a prolonged silence.

"Tell me more about this mutant you and Rogue captured. I've heard of the Thieves Guild before. They are based in New Orleans and headed up by one Jean-Luc LeBeau, but very little is known about the organization. Their secrecy is all but impenetrable. We must be there for his questioning if we hope to learn anything."

"Piss off and go ask someone else."

"Remember who you're speaking to, Boy," Magneto snapped.

That tone still had the power to make John cringe, to remind him how much he owed Magneto, who had taken him in when the idea of just ending it all had such a strong hold on him. He'd even attempted it once by taking some pills he'd pilfered from the infirmary at the mansion. He'd been unlucky again in that Jean had found him and saved his worthless ass. Yes, Magneto had taken him in, given him a purpose, control over his mutation, and a strange sense of family. Talk about a strange sense of family. His father figure was an old man with a bone to pick with all of humanity, thought himself a god, and made one Hell of a prickly drill sergeant. His mother figure was a blue woman who had a boner for Wolverine half the time and a boner for Magneto the other half of the time. His sister was a Latina chick named Calisto, who insisted on calling him "pretty" even though he'd clearly made it known he hated that particular title. His brother? That would be Kid Omega, a Chinese kid whose accent was so thick few people could understand him and who had once been arrested for indecent exposure at a rock concert while on John's watch.

"Pyro." There was clear warning in Magneto's voice that time.

"Yes, Sir," John said listlessly, "but there isn't much to tell. The bloke calls himself Gambit, but that's all the information Logan's been able to get out of him so far. There were a good thirty of them who attacked the mansion, but the deadliest of them was a weather mutant, probably bordering between Class Four and Class Five. He stomped Storm like she was a fly."

"Gambit," Magneto intoned as though turning the name over on his tongue. "A rather resourceful mutant also called Remy LeBeau. Jean-Luc LeBeau kidnapped him as an infant from the hospital when it was believed he fit some kind of prophecy. LeBeau is the leader of the Thieves Guild. It likely someone hired the organization to apprehend Rogue."

John tuned Magneto out after that in favor of returning to his own thoughts. He'd been right there! If he'd been a second faster, a little more intent, Rogue wouldn't have been taken. Now, she was no doubt enduring torture, being prepped to be used as a weapon, all because of him. If he was just a little less of a chicken shit, he would march right up to Logan, who had been shooting him death glances in the four days since the incident whenever they got close enough to each other, and let the man skewer him right through the head. He knew Logan was contemplating it, so it wouldn't take much provocation on John's part to get him to carry through with his murderous thoughts.

The memory of the brief kiss he'd shared with Rogue still lingered on his lips like the scent of a pleasant perfume lingering in the nostrils. Never before had he felt or experienced anything as clean and pure as that of Rogue's lips, and for once, he didn't feel all nasty inside for getting mushy or admitting to himself the existence of a softer emotion in him. Rogue had the remarkable ability of sapping him of all his badassery without making him feel dirty and used about it.

A faint smile curled his lips when he remembered trying to impress her during their field trip to the Natural History Museum, but the smile was immediately replaced by a blank expression as though he were paying attention to whatever Magneto was droning on about. That she might never smile again was a very real possibility, because there was no knowing what the enemy was doing to her, though he found it doubtful the Thieves Guild still had possession of her. If Magneto was right, they would have to beat the client's name out of Gambit.

His gut twisted. Not even realizing his full potential by being able to create fire without a lighter during the battle was able to make him feel anything but the sickening sludge of depression and guilt. She was gone. It was his fault, and that was all there was to it. Yeah, he was going straight to Hell to squeeze pineapple juice with his ass cheeks for Satan for the rest of eternity, and he would deserve every damned, motherfucking second of it.

The knock at his door garnered him a look from Magneto that clearly said, "don't look at me as though you expect me to jump to my feet and do the grunt work," so he was thrown off-kilter when the man actually rolled to his feet to pull the door open.

"Phoenix," Magneto said with a good deal of respect in his tone, "I've been waiting a very long time to meet you."

"Actually, it's Jean now. Phoenix melded herself with me, so that we can exist as one entity in the same body. How's John?"

"John's bloody fine!" John shouted, quite sick of that question after four days of incessant Bobby and Kitty Babysitting Services.

"In that case, I'm about to extract information from Gambit's mind against his will if necessary and thought you would like to be there. Logan has promised to be on his best behavior where you're concerned."

"Logan should just go ahead and learn to follow through with his bloody threats," he muttered to himself while shoving to his feet.

Worthington had permitted them access to the basement of the hotel where they were keeping Gambit confined, his mutation rendered inactive by Leigha Andrews. Now there was an interesting character, one of the best doctors in the country who had given up her position as chief resident of a busy ER department to teach anatomy and first aide and serve as the medical doctor of the mansion. He also suspected she had a thing for Logan when she wasn't busy being distant, a by-product of serving in the medical community for so long and a defense mechanism against caring for patients who might die no doubt, because a little birdie named Kitty had told him Leigha had spent a great deal of the past four days pestering Logan out of his wall of silent fury. Icon, was the code name Xavier had chosen for her, probably because she was a model mutant who didn't care if a person was human or mutant when it came to rendering her services.

Magneto was keen to get his hands on the doctor to make use of her ability to manipulate organic molecules on behalf of his daughter, the Scarlet Witch, who was holed up in some mental institution because her visions had driven her half-mad. Ah Magneto. Always predictable. Instead of simply asking Leigha to help, he was no doubt concocting some scheme to kidnap her from the X-Men. That man could never take the easy road, always had to make things far more difficult than they needed to be.

John pulled himself out of his thoughts when he stepped inside the basement room and peered through the dim light to see Gambit bound to a chair. Despite his circumstances, the man seemed to be rather amused instead of upset. Interesting response to captivity at the hands of those he had tried to destroy and the father he'd royally pissed off. The most interesting aspect of Gambit, however, were his black eyes with their red irises. If John were a little a more vain, he'd want eyes like those.

"You got two seconds to start talkin', Bub, before I start cuttin'," Logan growled, one of his claws a hair's breath away from Gambit's cheek.

* * *

A/N: I couldn't find much information on the Thieves Guild other than Gambit's background with them, so if I'm totally off-base with them, forgive me.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

"Cut all you want, mon ami, but Gambit, he ain't gonna say a word," Gambit responded in an almost friendly voice.

Logan snarled and was in the process of spilling some Gambit blood when Jean's voice stopped him as she said, "Logan, there's no need for that. We will get the information without needing to resort to such violence."

Actually, there was a need for it, he wanted point out, because his kid was fucking missing! Not only was she missing, but he suspected they were going to use her as a weapon against the X-Men, had swooped in to steal her in order to twist her mind. The others might not think Logan was the sharpest tool in the shed, but he wasn't fucking stupid. Given Rogue's genetic photographic memory, she could potentially become the strongest mutant, and therefore the strongest weapon, in the world.

"Come on, just lemme cut 'im a little. I ain't gonna feel better until I smell this bastard's blood."

"I know you want revenge for Rogue's kidnapping, but Gambit is no use to us dead. I'm sure members of the Thieves Guild have built up a tolerance for pain and torture. Is that correct, Mister LeBeau?"

"Ah, Cherie, ain't no reason for you to call Gambit Mister LeBeau. Cherie is right, though. No thief's gonna break under torture, Wolverine."

"He took my kid, Jeanie, and sold her to some fucking asshole who's gonna torture her, twist her mind, and try to use her against us. The little bastard deserves to bleed."

"Ain't nothing little 'bout Gambit."

"If you want to find Rogue, Logan, then we will do things Jean's way," Scott said from where he was sitting on a table.

Logan snorted a breath out through his nostrils, threw up his hands, and released his temper by punching the wall as hard as possible. Bits of concrete crackled and fell off, and the abrasions on his knuckles healed almost instantly. Not a fucking one of them understood the Hell he was going through without Rogue. Why was he without his kid? Because he'd gotten himself shot and because John was a prick who hadn't moved fast enough to keep his kid safe! Speaking of John, Logan pierced the kid with a heated glance but saved some heat for the glance he threw Magneto's way. Not knowing when Magneto was about was impossible, because every time the asshole was near, Logan's adamantium frame started vibrating.

"Fine, you have a go at him, but if he doesn't talk, I get to cut him apart piece by tiny little piece." He emphasized the last part of the sentence while getting in Gambit's face to let the bastard know just how much Logan would enjoy carrying out that promise.

"Gambit, he say there be an easy way out of this dilemma. You pay a thief enough, mes amis, and he tell you where to find his grand-mere."

"You want us to pay you to tell us who hired the Marauders to kidnap Rogue?" Jean repeated.

"Non, Cherie, not Gambit. Desolee, but Gambit ain't responsible for knowin' the clients who hire us. He only responsible for comin' up with the mission plans and leadin' the group. Cherie has to get in touch with Bayard, Gambit's second-in-command. Bayard knows who the client is."

"How do we get in touch with Bayard, and how much will he require to tell us the information we need to know?" asked Scott.

"Let Gambit free of the chair, and he'll contact Bayard for mes amis."

"Not a chance you're gettin' up from that chair in one piece until my kid is safely back with us. I think he's lyin' to us. What leader doesn't know all the details of such an important mission?"

Gambit actually smiled, and Logan wanted to rip that smile right off his face. "So mes amis can't persuade Gambit to talk."

"We'll release your arms long enough to contact Bayard, but if you make one move that doesn't agree with Logan, he won't hesitate to carve you up like a Thanksgiving turkey," Jean said.

A brow arched. Since when had Jeanie started hurling threats like she was a pro? Right, since a cosmic goddess had come to reside inside her body. He watched Gambit carefully when Scott unbound the man's hands from the back of the chair, twitched with the desire to skewer the bastard when said bastard took a moment to restore some of the circulation to his arms before pressing a button on his wrist that activated a small LCD screen on the underside of his forearm.

"You have such lovely gadgets. I would very much like to study some of them before we release you, that is, if you cooperate well enough for us to feel safe in releasing you again."

Logan did not like the inquisitive tone of Jeanie's voice. She'd changed since Phoenix had made her presence known, had changed even more when the intergalactic alien had fused their consciences together. One thing was certain, though, he was going to keep a close eye on Scott, because if for even a second Scott looked like he was going to freak out on Jeanie and stop loving her, Logan was going to beat One-Eye to within an inch of his life. He might not love Jeanie in the romantic sense anymore, but she was the best friend he could ever have.

Ignoring the details while Gambit typed into the small computer built into his wrist-guard, Logan clenched his fist so hard he probably would have broken his knuckles if it weren't for the adamantium. He'd failed Rogue yet again. How many times would he end up breaking his fucking promise to her that he would look after her? How many times would she have to pay the price for his stupidity? Tears stung the back of his eyes when he envisioned her strapped down to some table, her flesh broken and bleeding, desperation in her eyes as she waited for her dad to break through the wall to save her.

A soft hand touched his forearm and gained his immediate attention as he looked down to find Leigha standing next to him. He'd told her to piss off several times already, but she just wouldn't take the very obvious hint. Her comfort wasn't desired, because he deserved to feel all the misery and guilt currently residing in the pit of his stomach. If Rogue had to be tortured, he damn well deserved to be tortured too!

"Wallowing in misery and self-loathing won't bring her home any faster. In fact, it will only get in the way of you thinking clearly, and she desperately needs us all thinking clearly right now," Leigha said.

"How many times I gotta tell you to go away before you actually go away?"

"Until you're blue in the face and Rogue is home safely," she responded. "What happened is no one's fault. Now, I don't expect you to believe me, and I don't expect you to instantly snap out of it and start acting happy-go-lucky-skipping-through-a-field-of-tulips-singing-a-tisket-a-tasket, but I do expect you to eat, sleep, and act more like a bear with a thorn in its paw instead of a bear that hasn't eaten in a month and is out for blood."

She actually got a ghost of a smile out of him. People tended not to be so forthright with him, especially not women, but Leigha genuinely didn't seem to be afraid of his temper. It was like she knew instinctively he wouldn't ever go so far as to physically hurt her. That was…comforting in a strange way, but he instantly jerked his thoughts away from the five foot four inch firecracker in front of him. He didn't deserve to think about shagging the doc until her legs were Jello when his kid was suffering.

"Bayard say he tell mes amis what they want to know for two million," Gambit finally said, breaking the tense silence.

"Two million dollars just to give us a name?" One-Eye fairly shouted.

"Ah, you contract a thief, he'll do more than give mon ami a name, because we believe in doing the job thoroughly."

"How 'bout I hunt him down and rip his innards out instead?" Logan growled. "That's what you all deserve for fucking with Rogue."

"Logan," Jean said as though she would soon lose patience with him. Ha! An immortal ET losing patience? Weren't cosmic deities supposed to have the patience of a god?

"Tell him to call this number, and I'll wire the funds to his account. Half now and half when we have the information we need," Scott interjected before rattling off his cell phone number.

***

A man in military uniform went sailing out of the cell being used to contain Rogue, through the glass window directly across from her cell in a shower of glass shards, and down four stories. She would have loved to have been able to hear the sickening crunch of bone of him impacting on the ground, but alas, that wasn't to be, because as soon as the soldiers trying to hold her down were in motion again, she also had to be in motion. They were attempting to jab her with another dose of sedative to knock her out and transport her elsewhere, but if they thought she was going to make it easy on them, they had obviously eaten too much lead paint a kids.

Statistics told her the battle was fairly useless. After all, it was a numbers game. There were simply infinitely more soldiers and only one of her to go around. Eventually, she would either tire or one of them would get in a lucky shot, bringing an end to her struggles, but she would be damned if she just let them walk into her cell, jab her, and then wheel her off for whatever experimentation they had in mind for her. The worst was that she had no idea where she was or who was responsible for her capture, because she could theoretically mentally get in contact with Jean. Without information to pass on, however, it would be pointless to waste the energy. Neither did she hold out much hope Charles would be able to find her with Cerebro, not when the mansion had been so heavily damaged. The chances of Cerebro remaining intact were slim to none, so she was back to the numbers game.

Rogue whipped around and slugged a soldier hard enough to break his jaw bone, spun back around to send another flying away from her with a gust of wind, and brought down a third when he slammed into a wall of ice she threw up in front of herself. That she was able to readily use all the mutations she had absorbed even while in her right mind was almost frightening. No one person should have that much power. What was the saying? With great power comes great responsibility. Well, she damn well didn't want that responsibility! She just wanted to go back to being Rogue, hug her dad, go on a date with John, and tell Kitty she would be all right.

Yowling in frustration when the soldiers kept coming, Rogue shot her hand out to grab hold of an exposed neck that was snapped with a shake of her arm. The part of her that was still innocent and still very strongly believed in a mutant's responsibility to respect and defend humans was sickened by how easily she could now take a life, but she questioned that belief when the inevitable finally happened, when a tranquilizer needle pierced her thigh and sent her slumping to the ground.

She was hovering on the edge of consciousness, her vision blurry and ears ringing, when they loaded her onto a gurney before wheeling her through a series of dim corridors. Flashes of light over head as they passed under light fixtures made her stomach roil with nausea. Desperation mounted when the gurney slowed, turned a corner, and passed through a door frame into a fluorescent Hell. At least she thought it had to be some level of Hell what with the moaning and screaming in the room. The stench of human suffering and excrement clung in her nostrils, adding to the nausea threatening to make her stomach heave.

Was this how Logan had felt when he'd been taken to have the procedure to graft adamantium on his bones? Had he felt as helpless as she now felt? God, she hoped he didn't remember if their situations were anywhere close to being similar, because absolute helplessness and panic were rising to choke her.

"Welcome, Marie. I believe that's your real name rather than your silly mutant code name," a woman said.

"Piss off," Rogue muttered.

"Hush, Marie. Everything will go smoothly. Before you know it, we'll be finished here, and you'll start your new life as Mutant 13, an unlucky number for some, but for this program, it will be a very lucky number indeed."

"What program?" she demanded.

"The mutant extermination program of course. That silly president isn't even aware of its existence or that funding is being siphoned from Homeland Security to pay for our budget."

"Well, I guess I'll just have to write my congressman about getting you shut down. Seeing as how my congressman is Hank McCoy, I think I stand a good chance of getting him to listen."

She heard a soft chuckle before the woman, dressed in a military uniform over which she wore a lab coat, finally came into view. The woman's blonde hair was tucked up in a severe bun, her eyes a disarming shade of green, but Rogue also took note of the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth and across her forehead. The insignia on the front of her uniform jacket marked her as a general.

"Let's get these clothes off you for now."

"Doll, I don't swing that way, so we can skip the whole molestation scene if you don't mind, but if you really insist, go ahead and touch me. I swear I won't bite."

"It's not me who will be touching you, because I'm certainly not a fool. Ever since we saw you in action at Bellevue, I've known we needed to recruit you for our program, but it seems you need certain incentive to turn against your fellow mutants. I intend to provide you with that incentive."

"What the fuck are you yapping your jaws about?" But Rogue felt the first inkling of real fear, of utter terror that made her want to wet herself. They were going to make her drain some poor mental patient. They would return her to that state of madness in which she couldn't determine friend from foe, torture her until she was so confused and pissed off she couldn't control herself, and then unleash her on the mutant population.

"I think you've just figured out what I'm talking about, Sweetie. Sergeant, you may change her clothing now," the general said.

One of the men in the room, his hands gloved, jumped to do the general's bidding. In moments, Rogue was stripped down to her underwear even as she scrambled to try to get Logan's mutation to filter the drug out of her system.

"This is a stupid plan!" Rogue cried. "You have no idea what I turned into the last time I absorbed someone with a mental illness. I can't distinguish friend from foe. There's no way you'll be able to stop me from hurting the human population in the midst of my rampage. I'll kill people, General, good people who just happen to get in my way. Are you ready to have that kind of mass death on your hands?"

Within moments, Rogue was dressed in a black uniform of some type. She was able to tilt her head just enough to see the yellow X on the front of the uniform, mimicking the X-Men uniforms she normally wore. Only a few seconds passed before she understood the ramifications of what she was wearing and the consequences that would arise from it, so she really didn't need the general to explain.

"My dear, I'm counting on it. Not only will your friends come to stop you, thus gaining your wrath, but you will also renew fear of mutants in the human population. You will kill humans. The humans will hate mutants, and President Smithson will be forced to act against the mutant population."

"I hope your fucking tits rot off! I pray your uterus turns putrid and falls out your cunt! I can't wait to see your intestines in my hands, because when you do this, you're going to be the first one I come after."

But her words had no effect on the general, because a sergeant, half-supporting a young girl who looked like she hadn't been bathed in a year, hadn't eaten in a week, and was ready to gnaw on the sergeant's throat, came shuffling over. Rogue desperately tried to get Logan's mutation to filter the drug faster, but it wasn't fast enough. Before she could manage to get all her faculties back, the sergeant was pressing the girl's naked palm against Rogue's chest. At the last second, Rogue allowed herself to go limp in the table, to accept what as happening, because there was no fighting it when the spark popped a moment before the draining began.

The girl whimpered, moaned, and struggled in the sergeant's grip to no avail. It didn't do any good, and Rogue was left to gasp when the girl's life and memories drained into her. She'd been abandoned by her parents in a hospital ER during the onset of her mental illness. As soon as the girl was dead, they brought another over, and another after that, and yet another after that, a whole line of people, all criminally insane, all suffering from a whole range of mental illnesses. There were so many memories jumbling up in Rogue's head she had no way of sorting through them, no way of remembering which memories were hers and which belonged to those she had touched in her life.

"Damnit, there goes my bright idea that dating John would be fun." They were the last coherent words she spoke before a random mutation activated and snapped the restraints strapping her to the bed.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

John couldn't get enough air in his lungs with the heavy smoke pouring through the alley, couldn't see very well past the watering of his eyes, but he'd be damned if he wasn't having the time of his life playing with all the fire. No! He was appalled at himself for even thinking that and immediately rephrased the thought. He would be having the time of his life if it wasn't for the fact that Rogue was on the warpath. Any minute now, someone might get in a lucky shot and drop her out of the air, bringing a quick--hopefully--end to her life. Like that was a fun thing to think about!

"Fuck my life!" he yelled while collecting a ball of fire in his hand and hurling it in a stream at the crazed mutant running toward him.

See, only having to battle and perhaps kill Rogue would receive a "this fucking sucks pig nuts," but the situation was elevated to a "fuck my life" moment because Rogue hadn't come alone. Twelve goons had come with her, each one dressed in a black uniform, the chests of which were decorated with a yellow X. They had effectively laid waste to much of the Bronx and were working their way through the city in a crazed manner. Anything that got in their path was destroyed. Anyone who tried to impede their progress met an untimely end. Hell, the human soldiers President Smithson had mobilized in an attempt to put a stop to the mutant equivalent of a stampede were little better than fodder under the heat of Rogue's fury.

Of course Stupid Fucker 1 insisted on putting on a burst of speed that brought him out of the path of John's fire instead of dying the way he should have, so John had to suck the fire back onto his palm, pivot, and shoot a streaming arch of it after Speedy-Fucking-Gonzales. Again he was a second too slow and paid for it when Speedy slammed into his back with just enough momentum to throw John forward into his own flames. What? Like that was supposed to hurt?

Shaking it off, he lunged back to his feet and forced his mind to focus on one pinpoint, because trying to think and worry about Rogue while in the midst of battle would end up being the death of him. He could imagine what Calisto would order carved on his headstone. "Here lies Pretty Pyro, dead by sap-induced brain-fartage."

A scream from overhead, however, destroyed the focus he'd found when he glanced up to find Rogue hovering nearby. She was grasping her head, shaking it back and forth the way a wet dog shook off water, and screaming in a maddened state of confusion that literally broke what heart he had to see her in such a condition. The fuckers--Bayard had informed them she had been sold to a secret military mutant program not even the president was aware of-- had hurt her so badly, but still she fought to return to herself. If she could fight. He sure as Hell could too.

His chest tightened when he watched Phoenix lift into the air just behind Rogue, instant fear gripping him. Was this the moment? Was now the time for Rogue to die? A quick breath left him when Rogue whipped around and sent Phoenix hurtling away from her, though he wasn't sure if the breath was from relief or disappointment that Phoenix hadn't been able to bring it to an end. John just wanted her misery to be over whether or not Phoenix would be able to resurrect her. It was like that sci-fi story he'd been forced to read at the mansion in which elderly people were kept alive in a comatose state by machines just because people were obsessed with prolonging life. What life would there be for Rogue if she went on the way she currently was? Better to be kind than to extend her suffering. Damnit, there he went getting sappy again! He'd spent too much time around the X-Freaks lately.

John half-ducked when he heard the sound of someone hitting a wall behind him and whipped around on his heel to find Calisto grappling with Speedy-Fucking-Gonzales. Obviously she had taken up the slack for him… again, so he tightened his features. Self-preservation forced Rogue and her plight out of his mind for the time being. There was a battle to be won, and he so very much loved his pretty fire.

"Hey Pretty, pay attention to what the Hell you're doing before you get your cracker ass killed!" Calisto shouted. "Quit mooning over that psycho X-Freak and get your head in the fucking game."

"I'm the only one who gets to call them X-Freaks," he muttered. At the same time, his hand whipped out to gather up fire from the building next to them.

Fire. So beautiful, so warm, such a cherished thing. It could succor life or cause destruction, and he was the only one who could truly control or contain it, unlike that idiot wannabe who called himself the Human Torch. A half-smile cocked his lips as he expanded the flames, shaping them like a sculptor so attuned to his work that it almost became an orgasmic process. From the chaotic flames began to appear the shape of a dragon. Within moments, it was almost a living entity unto itself, for John flicked the last of the fire off his palm so that the dragon was no longer connected to him and sent the beast bounding down the alley.

Flames erupted from is gaping maw to devour one of the twelve goons. There was no describing the sense of absolute completion racing through John's veins, the euphoria bubbling up inside him until he wanted to laugh for no reason at the knowledge he had attained the pinnacle of his potential. He was a god of fire and destruction, or was that Magneto talking? No matter. All he cared about was the beautiful beast whose jaw was devouring the mutant.

Great effort was needed to draw his attention away from the display, but he forced his mind back to the task at hand. Rogue was the powerful one. She was the one they needed to deal with, because these lesser mutants could be rounded up later and would cause less overall damage to the city than a pissed off Rogue who was even now forming tornado clouds around her to hold off the Airforce fighter jets seeking to pen her in. Didn't the idiots know the more they attacked her the more her fury escalated? Of course not. God forbid the X-Freaks listen to him for any length of time when they would rather do it their own way and completely botch things. He'd already explained the whole self-preservation instinct and didn't want to have to repeat it.

John slapped the com unit on his wrist, located there because he absolutely refused to wear one of those X-Men uniforms, and said, "How many times do I have to tell you people to stop attacking her before you get it through your thick skulls? Pull those fucking jets back. The only way you're bringing her down is through an ambush."

"Remember what I told you about checkin' your snark at the door, Kid," Logan's voice emanated from the unit.

"Do you want your kid back to normal or not? Tell Cyclops to pull everyone back. She's pawning your asses hardcore, so it's obvious the 'rush in and bungle everything up' approach isn't working."

He jerked his glance skyward when he heard Rogue scream. Gambit, poised on the roof of a building, had gotten in a lucky shot with one of his cards while her attention was diverted toward the jets. She plummeted from the air. John's heart leaped into his throat, and he tore off in the direction he saw her falling. He refused to allow himself to hope Gambit had actually gotten in a killing blow, that it was already over and he wouldn't have to live in the morbid mire of knowing Rogue was in mental agony.

Though he knew it wasn't possible, he swore he heard her hit the ground over the cacophony of other sounds rumbling through the tight press of buildings. He rounded a building and saw her there in a crumpled heap of black uniform and hair, the splash of her white hair pristine against the rubble-littered ground. She wasn't moving, and the lump of his heart got even bigger, so big he thought he would choke on it. A running leap was necessary to clear a pile of bricks, but then he was there. He was crouching down beside her. The trembling of his hands was passed off as residual excitement from the dragon he'd created earlier rather than fear or grief.

"Rogue," he whispered while reaching out to brush hair back from her face.

Her chocolate eyes were open, but they fixed on him, assuring him she wasn't dead, her existence above snakes being further proved when she said, "John, help me. Make it stop. I can't make them go away."

John didn't think he could get the words out past the constriction of his throat, but he managed to choke out, "It'll all be over soon. All you have to do is close your eyes, and then it'll be over."

With exquisitely slow motions so as not to alarm her, he retrieved the knife from his boot. God, why did he have to be the one to give the killing blow? Of all the people engaging in this one battle, a coalition between X-Men, the Brotherhood, and human soldiers, why had fate given him this task? Because fate was bullshit created by philosophers who had nothing better to do than sit on their asses dreaming up ways to make people more accepting of their lots in life. There was no God. There was only Hell, and he was a card-carrying resident.

"I woulda liked to have mooned the Dairy Queen drive-thru attendant with you, but I'm so tired." she breathed in a thickened Mississippian accent.

"Hey, the drive-thru dude isn't going anywhere. He'll be there when you get back. Should we warn him to bring a camera to work that day so he can get a picture of the hottest ass in the world?"

She grabbed his hand suddenly with bloodied gloves and exclaimed, "No matter what happens you gotta promise me you'll forgive Bobby. You gotta promise me you won't disappear for another five years without talking to anyone at the mansion. They believe in you. We've always wanted to believe in you."

"Don't get all mushy on me, Rogue. You know how much I hate sap." But he had to blink away a stinging at the back of his eyes. It was from the smoke. Yeah, just from the smoke.

"Promise me."

"Yeah, yeah, I promise. I'll forgive the little prick and do a better job of keeping in touch." The knife was there in his hand, but even though he knew what had to be done, he was loath to do it, wanted just another moment memorizing her face if Phoenix wasn't able to bring her back.

Now. It had to be now. Her control would slip at any second and rob him of this opportunity to put a quick end to things, but as the knife was poised over the back of her neck and ready for the plunge that would have sent it severing her brain stem, a group of human soldiers came racing into the alley shouting.

Two things happened simultaneously then: John shouted at the soldiers to put their weapons down and Rogue hit him so solidly in his chest he was thrown down the alley into the knot of soldiers like he was a bowling ball to their bowling pins. Her fury returned, snapping her tenuous control, before he was able to get back to his feet where he might have had a chance at incinerating her. She rocketed back into the air with a maddened scream to continue the assault on New York City.

"You brainless, fucking, moronic idiots!" he shouted his frustration at the soldiers. "No wonder your kind is fucking going extinct!"

***

"You gotta get me up in the air to her, Jeanie," Logan said, more than a small amount of dread in his voice. "Either she'll calm down and let me coax her down to us, or I'll be in a position to…" He couldn't even say it. Hell, he wasn't even sure he could do it, but nothing else they'd tried had worked.

"No. Charles made a promise to Rogue that you wouldn't be the one to give the killing blow, and we will hold to that promise."

"She's tearin' the city to pieces. Not even you and your new ET powers have been able to crack through to her, so the way I see it, this is the only thing we got left. She can't kill me."

"It might not have to come to that," Scott suddenly said from where they were monitoring the battle from a nearby rooftop while Rogue used a car as a baseball bat to tear apart a building. At least she wasn't going after the people fleeing the building and was restraining herself to merely causing property damage.

"You got a better idea, One-Eyed? I'd sure love to hear it." If he got any tenser, he knew he'd end up snapping in half. Hell, he intended to have Magneto do just that if Phoenix couldn't bring Rogue back to life, because there was no way he could face an eternity without her.

"Actually, I do. Why is Rogue so powerful against us?"

Bayard, who had indeed volunteered the services of the thieves to help mop up the situation they had caused in the first place, for a price of course, cut in to say, "Because she knows your moves before you can even conceive them. She has all of you inside her head, knows precisely how to counter every plan of attack by using your own mutations against you." The black mask and goggles covering his features prevented Logan from seeing the face of the man he intended to beat the shit out of later.

"Exactly," Scott returned, "but how would she react if a new and unique mutation was brought against her? It might slow her just enough for us to get in one shot. We would have one chance to end it."

"Who the Hell here hasn't she touched except for Bug Eyes over there?" Logan snapped.

"Angel's wife, Symphony. She has the power to enchant all listeners with her singing voice. The rest of us will have to wear ear plugs while she's singing to keep ourselves from being enchanted as well, but if Symphony can stop her for even a moment, it will be enough."

Jeanie cocked her head to the side in a rather bird-like manner as she seemed to consider Scott's plan. "Yes, I believe that may buy enough time to get in a killing blow. I do not like that she has been able to thwart my attacks thus far. This shell is not quite used to using my abilities yet, but this upstart girl has learned to control them seamlessly."

"That upstart girl is my baby, and that shell you're wearin' is Jeanie, so you better watch how you're statin' things."

"She and I are one now, Logan. You must accustom yourself to that fact. There is no Jeanie, and there is no Phoenix left inside this body, merely a combination of the two. Yet I understand your snappishness is a result of your fear for Rogue."

"I suggest you implement your plan as quickly as possible," Bayard interrupted. "It seems she is no longer content simply beating a building into a pile of bricks. Show me to this Symphony. I will outfit her with one of our telepathic disruptors."

Logan couldn't tear his eyes away from Rogue when she plummeted into a dive toward the fleeing humans that was barely turned aside by a gust of wind from Ororo. What was it the kids were always saying? They were getting their asses handed to them on a plate. Leigha and Angel had their hands full trying to medically treat all the wounded. Kitty was limiting herself to a support position by going into buildings to retrieve any who were trapped inside because she simply couldn't face fighting Rogue. Bobby had taken a blow to his arm while trying to freeze Rogue in place that had snapped his bone, thus putting him out of the battle, and Piotr was nursing a case of scalded flesh when Rogue had set fire to him.

Yeah, getting their asses handed to them was a mild way of stating that they were fucked. His baby girl… Finding the person responsible for her present condition had become a top priority, ranking just above learning about his past and just below getting Rogue back to normal. One thing was certain; he was never having fucking kids of his own! Trying to raise and care for one kid was hard enough. Imagine adding a miniature Logan to the mix, but then he had never really thought about biological children. Breeding just wasn't an urge for him when he knew he'd make a shitty father.

As soon as the miniature meeting had been brought to an end, Logan dropped from the rooftop, his claws slowing his decent by raking gouges into the side of the building until he landed gracefully on the ground. People assumed he was a lumbering ox because of the bulk of his muscle, but he just let that play in his favor when they ended up underestimating his quickness.

Rogue's attention had turned to the people fleeing from the immediate path of destruction, so Logan sprinted onto the main road she'd been working her way down to try to get her attention. Somehow, he had to lead her away from the humans if only because he knew how much it would hurt her when she returned to herself if she had, however inadvertently, caused a slaughter. He threw up his hands and roared her name at the top of his considerable lungs. That gained her attention all right, but it also gained the attention of one of the goons who had come with her. Logan leaped to the side to avoid one of the bone spikes that was hurled at him, not that it would have done any lasting damage, but he wasn't a damned masochist and would rather avoid pain if possible.

He rolled to the side at the last possible moment and brought his claws slashing toward the back of the mutant's head. The anticipation of impact tightened his body, but the impact never happened. A pivot brought him back around to face where the mutant should have been only to find Rogue in the process of snapping said mutant's neck. The body crumpled out of her hands.

Never in all his eternal existence would he forget the feral expression in her eyes, the absolute emptiness he saw there. Gone was the vivacious, sassy young woman he loved more than he could ever possibly love a child of his own loins. In her place was a shell, a creature who survived on instinct and the desire to cause pain and death. Her eyes suddenly cleared as though a light had been turned on, and she instantly burst into desperate tears. She reached for him.

Logan could never deny her anything, so he ran forward and gathered her up in his arms, one of his big hands covering the back of her head to press her face against his shoulder. His baby was shaking so terribly.

"Please stop it. Kill me. It's the only way I'll never be able to hurt anyone else. Dad, you gotta help me, because I can't do it myself."

Tears beaded the lower rim of his eyes. Did she know what he was asking of him? Of course she did, because he might be the only one who could kill her, might be the only one she would ever let get near enough to do it. God, how could he? The claws extended on one of his hands.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

To snuff out Rogue's life and never see her come bounding into his room at the end of the day to say good night, that's what the plunging of his claws into her flesh would mean. Feeling her blood warm his hand would mean she would never drag around that gigantic stuffed giraffe wearing those ridiculous pajama pants with little rubber ducks all over them. Having her last breath heave in and out of dying lungs would bring an end to those impish little grins she always wore when he knew she was up to getting her way, and God help him, he had never become impervious to those grins, not that he believed in God or any higher power. There was too much evil in the world for him to believe. Gone. Snuffed out. Extinct, and yes, the passing of Rogue would be like an entire species going extinct, because no one in the world made him feel the way his baby made him feel; as though he wanted to be a better man just for her.

Move, he said to his raised claws. All he had to do was plunge that hand down toward her back and feel adamantium puncture her soft flesh, shatter her ribs, and ravage her heart past the point of repair. Then it would all be over for her. She wouldn't have to suffer any longer, but his suffering would only just be starting. He screamed at muscles locked tense and waiting for command from his brain, but those muscles didn't so much as twitch.

"I can't do it," he sobbed against her hair, his arm dropping to come around her shoulders and keep her locked against his chest.

"You're the only one who can!" she cried desperately. "Dad, if you don't do it, I'll never be whole again. Please!"

The ravaged sound of her voice brought his claws back up into position. He said he'd always look after her, damnit! This was merely a part of looking after her, but God, he couldn't do it, not even to fulfill his promise. His legs were shaking so badly he wasn't even certain he could remain on his feet for much longer let alone find the strength to shove his claws into her young body. Not even for a million lives could he do what she was asking him to do, because she was worth more than every single one of those million lives. It was as simple as that.

"I can't, Kid. I'm sorry, but I can't do this, not for anythin' or anyone in the world, not even for you, so don't you go givin' me those big eyes of yours. You gotta fight! You're in there, and you're in control, so you gotta tell all those other bastards inside your head that they ain't rulin' over you."

For a moment, he really thought she could do it, because there was a look of absolute determination in her expression. His baby could do anything, so surely she could do this, but the sound of a gun barking nearby broke her concentration. A bullet struck the wall of the building they were standing in front of and showered the air with crumbling masonry. That was all it took. One bullet in her direction, and Rogue threw off his arms like throwing off a blanket when in a rush to get out of bed in the morning and took off into the air again with a feral scream.

Logan dove for cover when he saw the ball of flame ignite in her hand. "Cover!" he cried while diving behind a building sign, because having his flesh melted off didn't sound in the least like a good idea. The neon lights proclaiming Girls, Girls, Girls would be forever burned behind his eyes, but the flames never came roaring down the street, so he popped his head out from the other side of his sign to see what was going on.

That crazy fucking kid! John was standing in the middle of the street and seemed to be engaging in a crazy game of tug-o-war with Rogue over ownership of the flame in her hand. A lion of flames was loping beside the boy. A game like that could last only until they determined which of the two was the stronger, and he wouldn't want to lay a wager on that outcome.

Scrambling to get out from behind the sign and perhaps do something inanely stupid like tackle John to get the kid out of Rogue's line of sight, Logan charged only to be brought up short by a hulking thing. That couldn't be a man, but it sure looked like one. Rotund wasn't a word in his vocabulary he made use of often, but it more than applied here. Actually, rotund didn't even do this dude justice. The guy had a great big fat hulking belly. A brow arched when Logan found himself being charged at by that mountain of fat. This was gonna hurt, so he cracked his neck, flexed his knuckles, and leveled his claws in a position to impale the prick.

The weight slamming into him made his feet skid across the pavement, but he felt his claws puncture and slide into soft tissue. Trouble was, the guy was so damned fat his claws couldn't reach any vital organs. An innocent wall met its untimely end when the fat man turned Logan into a mutant projectile that ended up taking out four humans in his wild flight before he came to rest inside a factory of some type. All Logan could do was allow himself to see stars for a moment before he got up and dusted himself off. For as obsessed as he was with finding who had grafted the adamantium to his bones, he had to admit it came in handy on more occasions than not.

Sticking a nub of a cigar in his mouth, he lit it from the flames gutting the inside of the building and then cracked his knuckles. "Come on, Bub, that all you got?"

He brought his claws up and raced toward the mutant, dancing the side at the last possible moment and using a car as a convenient springboard from which he launched himself onto the man's wide back. There was plenty cushion for him to land on, he noted to himself. Why weren't there any girls sighing and squealing over his feats of agility like there always were in the mansion when Lord of the Rings was played for movie night and that fruitcake elf went leaping on things?

The cigar clenched between his teeth, he drove his claws toward the mutant's skull in the hopes of bringing a quick end to the fight so he could find his kid again, but Blob lurched to the side and rammed himself head-first into the car Logan had recently pulled a Legolas from, thus crushing Logan between the two equally immovable objects. Despite his best efforts, he groaned at the flare of pain. There went the adamantium saving his worthless--after all, he couldn't even bring himself to have mercy on his baby girl--hide again, because he would have been rendered little better than a pancake without it. His cigar had faired much worse and was now crushed beyond recognition or repair.

"That was my last fucking one!" he shouted in a mixture of outrage and desperation at knowing Rogue was still in pain because he was a chicken shit.

What remained of his own sanity snapped when he heard Rogue screaming in the distance. Roaring out his mental agony and fury, he lurched to his feet and forced Blob backward with several well-timed punches of his claws that left gaping holes but did little damage through the man's thick layer of fat. A meaty hand was avoided with a duck, a duck he made use of by raking his claws into the man's legs. He then leaped to the side, danced around the other hand, and sank his claws into flesh over Blob's hamstrings in an effort to incapacitate him.

Bleeding from so many wounds Logan didn't care to count, Blob finally hit his knees, allowing Logan the opportunity to drive the claws of both hands directly into the man's face. He didn't think even that would reach a vital organ, but he knew he'd finally won, had finally succeeded in reaching Blob's brain, when the man shuddered, twitched, and went crashing to the ground.

Now, to find his kid again and try to tempt her back out of the sky. If he could just keep her distracted until Scott brought Symphony, he would have at least been of some use to his kid. Jogging through the war zone that was the Bronx had his mind twitching with images that danced just out of his reach. He knew the scent of charred ruins, knew the scent of blood, gunpowder, and death, but he couldn't place where he knew them. That feeling of having something perpetually perched on the edge of his tongue yet so distant it was beyond recall was maddening but had also become a fact of his life. He couldn't remember. Part of him wondered if he even wanted to remember anymore. What would be the point in knowing his past be it a good past or a seedy one when it no longer mattered?

His past certainly didn't matter to Rogue any more than her past mattered to him. Once this was over with, he wouldn't look at her any differently, wouldn't think any less of her, and would devote however long was needed to getting her over the horrors she had witnessed her own body committing against her will. They could check in to Bellevue together. No! Not Bellevue. That was where all this started in the first place, and he still had a good mind to tell Charlie exactly what he thought of his kid being sent into that Hellhole.

He didn't notice anything out of the ordinary until he screeched to halt when he caught sight of his kid standing amidst a mountain of bodies looking like some demon queen risen from the abyss to make men pay for their crimes. That was when he heard soft singing lilting through the air. What was she singing? It was the most beautiful thing he had heard in his remembered life. He'd heard Rogue sing it once when she had thought no one was listening, but he had been listening, and her beautiful voice had brought tears to his eyes.

This voice, however, didn't make him want to cry. It made him want to draw closer, made him want to lay down, close his eyes, and bask in the last thing that was beautiful in the world. Surely nothing terrible could exist that could remotely equal the absolute beauty of the voice he was hearing, a beauty that could never be snuffed out. When he found her, a tall woman standing on the roof of a building flanked on one side by the platinum-headed Angel and on the other by Jeanie, a smile twitched his lips. Spanish. Her accent was Spanish, not the Mexican variety, but that of a Spaniard. A Spanish queen for America's Worthington prince.

"Don't look, Logan," he heard her singing to him even from the distance separating them. "Close your eyes, my friend. Trust that all things will come to a beautiful end and close your eyes. Have no fear of the dark of the world."

That was the best idea he had ever heard, so Logan allowed his eyes to sink closed to better wrap himself up in the inexplicable peace he felt with her lulling voice so near.

***

The putrid taste of vomit would always be disgusting but not quite as disgusting as the sting in his nostrils from bile splashing up inside that would have him snorting to get some relief for the next hour. Seeing Rogue tearing open a man's chest hadn't really been that traumatic, but the expression of epic orgasm on her face had been enough to send his stomach into irreversible spasms that had only ended with the total emptying of its contents. She'd enjoyed it the same way he enjoyed the power he held over humans as a superior being. No, that wasn't right. Rogue herself hadn't enjoyed the act and hopefully wouldn't remember her body going through the motions. Whichever personality was currently in control had enjoyed it.

So focused was he on trying to get the bile out of his nostrils that he didn't notice Magneto at first. A nudge, which was actually more like a shove, was required to get his attention before a set of earplugs was passed to him. Magneto was wearing his "ask questions and die" look, so John simply tucked the things into his ears and waited for any instruction the boss might want to pass on. None were forthcoming. Magneto merely stood in the relative shelter of a small alley as though he were expecting something to go down any second now.

Damnit, they were losing valuable time, because Rogue seemed to be in the middle of an internal struggle. Each time, he hoped she would be able to permanently regain control, but each time she failed to do so, and John was learning a valuable lesson about hope on this endless night. Hope in one hand and shit in the other and see which filled up the fastest. He hated being a bystander in whatever plan Magneto was anticipating. At least someone had bothered coming up with a plan instead of continuing the useless frontal assault.

Movement on a rooftop brought his attention there to see Angel, his white wings a beacon in the darkness that surely slapped a gigantic bulls eye on his chest, alighting on top of the roof and setting a woman down next to him. Jean was also there. Were they just going to stand there? Apparently, because none of the trio made a move to approach Rogue, though he thought he could make out the woman's lips moving, but the distance was too great to be certain. All he knew was that Rogue's head jerked around to allow her to look up to the rooftop.

The second she turned away, Bayard, at least he assumed it was Bayard since he couldn't tell one thief from the other when they were in their uniforms, popped up on a rooftop opposite Rogue with a sniper rifle fitted securely against his shoulder. John wanted to close his eyes. He wanted to do something other than just stand there, but Magneto's hand on his shoulder prevented it. Not a sound penetrated the earplugs, though he knew the gun went off when the barrel jerked almost imperceptibly.

Someone was screaming when Rogue crumbled. Who could make that kind of agonized sound? Logan? No, it didn't sound like one of Logan's patented roars. Kitty? No, she wasn't even in the area, had been ordered to stay behind the front lines with Leigha to help with the emergency triage so she wouldn't have to be witness to Rogue's demise. God, that scream was so terrible. Why weren't his earplugs working?

Magneto grabbed his shoulders and shoved him against a wall, prompting John to look up at him with wide eyes, but the move stopped the terrible cry. Had he been making that sound himself? His cheeks were wet. Why were his cheeks wet? There was a good chance Phoenix could bring Rogue back, so there was no reason for him to be weeping or screaming in agony, but the expression on Magneto's face, one that almost looked like concern, was all the assurance he needed to pin the Sap Badge squarely on his own chest. A helpless feeling swamped him. It was like trying to run through the heavy surf of an incoming tide to escape a great white, so desperate to reach safety but completely unable to make it.

She was dead. Flailing broke Magneto's hold on him, and John was tearing down the street to the intersection where Rogue had fallen so he could roll her body over and check her for a pulse. Not even a faint one met his fingers, not a whisper of breath stirred the air around her, but the absolute worst was seeing her eyes fixed and dilated off on some point in the distance. He could only pray she was seeing things more peaceful than she had seen in the last couple of weeks. Shit, was that all it had been? It felt like a lifetime had passed.

The whole thing seemed so anti-climactic. Things had been building toward this one terrible moment for so long, and in the blink of an eye, the moment was over. All that was left was the harsh realization of the consequences of their actions. He hadn't even gotten to participate in that final moment. Neither had Logan, the one man who loved her more than anyone should possibly be able to love another person. Two strangers had taken her life, people who had never even met Rogue to know that she was the most forgiving person alive or to know a person would surf through a shoal of sharks after bathing in chum just to be the recipient of one of her smiles.

He pulled the earplugs out and tossed them aside before stroking a hand over her hair. At least she looked peaceful. Her face wasn't twisted with madness as it had so often been lately. Words right now seemed so irreverent, not that he could have formulated a single damned sentence for an occasion like this. A fucking journalist who couldn't even begin to formulate the opening lines of her eulogy. There would be no eulogy, damnit, when Phoenix was capable of bringing her back.

"John, you need to let go of her. We must move her before the military arrives to take possession of the body," Jean said. "The president has promised a full pardon for any crimes committed here, but we can't risk the military getting involved."

He looked up at her without understanding at first, but when her words finally broke through the fog of his brain, he clamped down on his emotions and eased Rogue back onto the ground before scooting away from her. Those few moments had him feeling once again like the helpless child he'd been the day his mutation had presented and killed his sister. Damnit, there was a reason he kept himself walled off from other people, but the walls had served little defense during this mess.

People were running toward them. Fearing it was the military coming to take Rogue away, he leaped to his feet and drew a stream of flames onto his hand in preparation for toasting anyone who got close enough to touch her. The protective instinct was unneeded when he saw Bobby, Kitty, and Peter running in their direction. Parker, damnit, not Peter! Rogue had a terrible influence on him if he was willing to even think Parker's given name.

John wasn't supposed to care when Kitty took one look at Rogue's body and turned into Bobby's shoulder with a sob of grief. Hell, he wasn't supposed to bloody fucking care about any of them after five years of separation. How could two weeks reverse all those years spent distancing himself from these people and their offer of friendship and family? But he did care, and therein lay the problem. He cared that Bobby's arm was wrapped up in a tight ace bandage. He fucking cared that Piotr looked like someone had tried to roast him up like a lobster, and he fucking cared that Peter--Parker, damnit!--had a large blood stain covering the torso of his Spidey suit. He motherfucking cared that Logan had been forced to endure his kid's death. How could he not care about the ravaged body of the woman he fucking loved more than he loved Magneto and more than he loved his own damned mutation? They were his minions, and no one but him was allowed to hurt them. Ever.

A wall of silence ensconced him during the short flight back to the Ritz where he learned that Logan, being carted around unconscious by Magneto, had been enchanted into sleep before Rogue had been shot and would be kept in a comatose state until just before his kid was resurrected to spare him the horror of being awake and knowing Rogue was dead. He didn't attempt to involve himself in any of the repairs to the city the X-Men were volunteering to help with, but neither did he join in on any of the meetings Magneto was holding with the Brotherhood. No doubt they were considering the best way to turn this to the advantage of militant mutants. He swore to Christ, not that he believed in Christ, if Magneto was thinking about trying to use Rogue as a weapon, he'd shove his hand up Magneto's ass and roast his insides.

The only thing he could bring himself to do was sit by Rogue's bedside while Jean worked on resurrecting her and repairing the damage to her body. Luckily there wasn't much damage to repair, just the gunshot to the head John found himself draping a towel over to avoid having to look at. Just imagining how much she'd been through and how much therapy she would need to be able to deal with it all had him existing in realm torn between the hated desire to cry and the need to find a bucket in case his stomach revolted. Rogue was pure in her beliefs. Her morality didn't exist in shades of gray the way his did, so how she would react to the things her body had been forced to perform was something he didn't want to think about.

In those terrible days and nights, he came to realize that was why he loved her so much, because of her purity, because despite the burdens she carried, she had still retained some small sense of wonder in the world. She hadn't allowed her parents' rejection of her to destroy her ability to trust unlike him. It was as simple as her being stronger than he was, and one of the few things he could respect was strength. She was a badass wrapped up in just the right amount of softness to make him want to be a better person. Rogue would never allow him to become distant, accepted him as he was, and never pressured him to believe in things he couldn't bring himself to believe in.

Kitty and Bobby often came to keep the vigil at her bedside with him. It was on one of the rare occasions when Bobby came alone that Bobby said, "So I'm ordering season tickets to the Red Sox games. You want to go to a couple games with me?"

John glanced up from watching the rise and fall of Rogue's breast to say, "Shut up, bitch, I'm a Yankees fan."

"So am I…as long as they're not playing the Red Sox. Dude, I'm from Boston. I've gotta root for the home team."

"I'll go to a damn Red Sox game with you if you'll go to a Yankees game on me."

"That's a deal. Are we good, John?"

"If we weren't, your pansy ass would just keep calling me until I agreed, so yeah, we're good. I'm thinking about sticking around for a while anyway, at least until Rogue's back on her feet and is dealing with this shit." He wanted to slug Bobby when the little prick offered up a knowing grin.

"Yeah, okay, but the first time Kitty bitches at me about you stealing from her secret candy stash, I'll freeze your feet to the floor and let her pummel you."

"Guess that means you'll be buying extra candy." A little smile curved his lips when he realized just how easy it was to go back to being normal with Bobby. It felt…good. He wasn't used to things feeling good.

* * *

A/N: Just one more chapter after this one.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Dying and being brought back to life were nothing like Rogue had expected them to be. Hell, she didn't know what she had been expecting, but rousing in a strange hotel room feeling as though she had woken after a peaceful sleep certainly wasn't it. Her eyes didn't feel leaden or gummy. She wasn't groggy, nor had she experienced the light at the end of the tunnel cliché. Neither did she think she had been transported to an afterlife. As a matter of fact, the only thing she did remember from the whole encounter was a soft voice lulling her into a dazed state. Everything was blank after that.

Drawing in the first morning's sigh, she stretched her hands over her head to work out all the kinks in her muscles. The only reason she knew the others had succeeded in killing her was because her mind was blessedly free of the overwhelming clamor of dozens of voices all screeching at the same time. She couldn't even recall any of Logan's memories, so she was alone in her own head, abandoned by all the peaceful memories she might have gained from Jean or Scott, and left only with the horrible certainty she had committed unspeakable acts but unable to remember exactly what those acts were.

Her glance fixed on the ceiling as she tried to sort it all out in her head. There were gaps in her memories as though she'd blacked out interspersed with moments of lucidity. She remembered falling from the sky from one of Creole's explosions, remembered begging John to make it stop, could recall asking her dad to end it all. That was a measure of how desperate she had become to ask him to give the killing blow, but coming back to lucidity in the middle of a war zone had left her so terribly confused.

How many had she killed? How much damage was she responsible for? Fat tears gathered on her lashes. She couldn't even remember where it had all started since Charles had taken memories from her she would never be able to get back. One phrase kept repeating itself over and over in her head, something her parents had told her after her mutation had presented: "The Devil has taken hold of you, and you're going straight to Hell." Maybe they'd been right all those years ago.

"Hey, Kid, don't do that to yourself. Don't you go rememberin' shit best left forgotten," Logan said from a chair next to her bed.

The minute she heard her dad's voice and looked over to see how haggard he appeared, she couldn't help herself and descended into a fit of sobbing before flinging herself off the bed and into his waiting arms. He would make everything all right again. Nothing could be wrong in the world as long as Logan was willing to stand beside her, but for now, all she was capable of doing was sobbing into his shoulder, a river of tears she knew his shirt would have trouble soaking up. Her dad held her through her tears. His broad palm stroked over her hair, her back, her shoulders while he whispered nonsense things in her ear meant to give comfort. She didn't see how there could ever be comfort for what she was feeling now.

"I hurt people," she sobbed out. "I killed people. All that blood… They put me in an X-Men suit to make humans fear mutants again. Everyone will hate us now all because of me. The president will stop supporting our cause all because of me."

"Don't let me hear you talkin' like that again, Kid. President Smithson knows what went on. Gambit told her all about the military organization that did this to you. You aren't gonna be held responsible for any of it, and neither are mutants, so you shouldn't hold yourself responsible either."

"But they were my hands and my mutation that hurt so many people. How am I supposed to live with that?"

"By puttin' the blame where it belongs. Those bastards who did this to you are gonna pay. I'll make sure o' that."

"If I'd been stronger…"

"Cut it out," he interrupted in an emotion-roughened voice. "Ain't nobody who coulda fought any harder than you did, Kid. Is John responsible for his sister dyin' when his mutation presented?"

"No, but…"

"There ain't no buts about it. You didn't want none of this to happen, didn't ask for any of it to happen, so you ain't responsible. Now, you're gonna believe me, 'cause I'm your dad and know what's best."

"How can you even stand to look at me anymore after what I put you through?" she asked, her tears finally dying down to sniffles.

"'Cause you're my kid, and I promised to take care of you no matter what. I love ya, Rogue. I love ya more than I ever thought it possible to love another person. Sure, I suck at sayin' it, but I always feel it."

"I love you too, Dad. Would it be okay if I took some time off the X-Men just to get my head back on straight?"

"Of course, Kid. We'll go away for a while, just the two of us. You've been wantin' to go campin', so we'll take off for a couple of weeks and hang out together."

Rogue thought that was the best idea she'd heard in a long time and was in the process of saying so when the door was flung open to allow Kitty, Bobby, and John to come racing into the room. Bobby and John had sense enough to pull up before barreling into Logan and her, but Kitty kept right on going like a freight train. The impact rocked the chair back, but her dad was able to keep it from tipping over and spilling them all on the floor.

"Oh my God, if you ever die again, I kill you like chicken!" Kitty cried while worming her arms around Rogue's shoulders.

"I'm sorry. Forgive me for worrying you."

"You didn't mean to, and we're just all glad to have you back with us again. I swear, if I had to put up with another day of Bobby and John sulking and hovering around your door, I was gonna glue their butts to a bed."

"Yeah, it's good to have you back," Bobby said, "and we weren't hovering outside your door!"

"Much," John cut in.

Rogue umphed when Bobby added himself to the hug pile by getting his long arms around both Logan and her, but she looked over Kitty's head to John, who was hanging back from the glomp-fest, his eyes downcast. He looked uncertain to the point he wouldn't even look at her, and she suddenly realized he was afraid she would reject him now that she was mentally sound again, at least as mentally sound as she was going to get for a good long while. Shit, how could she reject him after everything he'd done to help her? She crooked her finger at him.

"Come on, John, one little group hug won't hurt you. I promise."

His reluctance was still evident the way he dragged his feet across the carpet, and rather than hugging everyone, he simply settled a hand on her shoulder, but it was a start. They could work on everything else with enough time. Extricating one of her hands from the pile of flesh, she reached up to twine her fingers with those of the hand he had on her shoulder, leaned her head back against his stomach, and let Kitty chatter on about all the things they were going to do together now that they had girl time to catch up on.

Healing from something so traumatic wasn't an easy thing, but Rogue counted herself lucky in that she was able to put it from her mind by working in the days and weeks following her death and resurrection. They had a mansion to rebuild after all, because for as nice as the Ritz was, home was always better. Worthington's rather massive donation went a long way in getting the rebuilding project under way all the faster and was added to by a special educational grant Smithson pushed through for them. What better time to add the new wing Charles had been planning than now, so Rogue found herself constantly busy, either camping out with some of the others on the school grounds during construction or traveling back and forth.

Figuring out that everyone seemed to be doting on her more than usual wasn't difficult when Kitty was constantly bringing her pretty things to wear and John was always making sure she had apple spice lattes from a gourmet bakery down the block from the hotel. Even Scott and Jean got into the giving spirit when they presented her with a new iPod, cell phone, and laptop. That was really above and beyond the call of duty as far as she was concerned, but she'd lost her electronics when the mansion had bitten the dust. No one, however, could outdo her dad in the doting department. If she even mentioned wanting something, he would show up the next day with it.

Rogue really tried not to take advantage of the situation, but she was twenty-one for the love of chocolate! Like she was going to complain about being given presents constantly. Logan went a little too far, however, when him, Kitty, and John collected her from her room one evening a month after her bout with insanity--yes, she could think about it now without flinching every time or running for the nearest bathroom--and escorted her down to the lobby where Kitty insisted on outfitting her with a bright pink blindfold.

"Pink?" she asked dubiously. "You know I'm totally anti-pink. I'd rather walk around naked than turn myself into Barbie."

"Naked? Can we dye her entire wardrobe pink?" John asked.

"Watch it, Bub, that's my baby you're talkin' about," Logan cut in. "Ain't nobody lookin' at her naked until there's a wedding ring on her finger."

"Come on, it's not like you can see what color it is, and trust me when I say you'll think it's worth it in the end," remarked Kitty.

"What the Hell are you three up to?"

"You'll find out in a minute, so if you'll quit your bitching, you'll get rid of the awful, terrible, nasty pink blindfold all the sooner," Kitty said.

Rolling her eyes beneath the blindfold, she held out her hands so two of them could lead her wherever they were taking her. Turned out they were taking her outside, because the sounds of traffic on the street intensified. They ended up taking her to the Ritz's parking garage and down one level from the main entrance where whomever was leading her finally let go of her hands.

"Okay, Kid, take off the blindfold," Logan instructed.

Divesting herself of the blindfold revealed a car with a bright red ribbon tied to the hood, and it wasn't just any car. It was the car of all cars, the automotive experience, the Granddaddy of all sports cars, the Bugatti Veyron. Motogasm sat there in all its pristine glory in shades of green and black, its gleaming finish like the halo of an angel come down from Heaven. The vehicle was beautiful and sexy and sleek, and Rogue was going to spend the rest of her life sleeping in it!

"Oh my God!" Rogue squealed. Her exuberance didn't end with that one shriek though. She continued squealing, slapped a hand over her mouth, almost hit the ground only to find her legs again, and kept right on shrieking.

"Oh John, do you think she really likes it? I mean, I was expecting a bigger reaction, maybe some fainting, but she's only squealing," Kitty said with barely-restrained laughter.

"Of course she hates it. I told you two this was a bad idea, that she would rather have a Hummer like mine."

Rogue barely heard them, because she was too busy making like a mouse and squeaking until she thought she would go hoarse. She then turned and tackled her dad in such a tight hug that even he had to ask her to let up on the pressure a little. A Bugatti Veyron! Her very own Motogasm!

"Oh my God, you so did not!" Kitty was saying in the background. "As a matter of fact, I remember you saying 'there's no one alive who can't love this car.' Only you said it with your British accent."

"Australian!" John corrected adamantly.

"Whatever, you still put the queen's face on your money."

"You really like it, Kid?" Logan asked, ignoring the antics of John and Kitty.

"Duh!" Rogue cried. She slapped a brief kiss on his cheek and then started jumping up and down when it really hit her. She had the coolest car in existence! "Thank you! ! I think I'm gonna faint…" Only she was too busy turning herself into a kangaroo to actually faint.

"Thank John and Kitty too. They found the car and decided on the paint job."

Grinning, she whirled around on her hopefully-soon-to-be-boyfriend and the-girl-who-might-as-well-be-her-sister and attacked them with hugs at the same time. "Where did you even find one? There's like a freaking waiting list to have them custom built!"

"Some dude ordered it but changed his mind and didn't want it when it was delivered, so we tracked it down."

"Kitty's nose should belong to a Bloodhound," John interjected.

"Oh my God, he's making fun of my nose now. At least I'm not British!"

"Australian!"

"Whatever. Rogue, put him out of his misery and go on a date with him so he'll stop acting like an emo little bitch."

"I don't know. Will the date involve mooning anyone in the restaurant industry?" Rogue asked with a smile.

"You ain't moonin' nobody, Kid! If I agree to let John take you out on a date, your pants will remain firmly super-glued around your waist, 'cause if I find out they've dropped any lower than that, you're ass is getting shipped to an Austrian convent!"

"Oh-Em-Gee, it's a first date! Nobody's gonna be taking their pants off on a first date, least of all my sister."

"Do you want to?" John asked, his glance finding something interesting on the pavement at her feet.

"Do I wanna what?" she asked. He was obviously getting a little flustered by the rising of color in his cheeks, so she smiled at him.

Obviously he didn't quite know what to say at first, because he stood there staring dumbfoundedly at her for a full forty seconds before blurting out, "Do you wanna break into Yankee stadium with me and make out in the player's locker room?"

"John Allerdyce!" Logan roared.

But Rogue ignored her dad for the time being in favor of laughing and draping her arms over John's shoulders. "How about we just go have dinner to start with and work our way up to breaking and entering?"

END

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A/N: That's it. Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to those who reviewed and/or favorited.


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